The Substitute Ladybug
by quicksilversquared
Summary: After Lila takes things too far and Marinette ends up with a broken leg, Paris is going to have to deal with a different superhero arrangement for a bit. Having to share her superhero identity with her parents before Hawkmoth can be defeated isn't something that Marinette had planned on doing, but- well, it might end up being a bit of a blessing in disguise.
1. Chapter 1

This was a _disaster_.

Marinette stared at the doctor as he gestured at the x-ray on the screen, the one that showed in detail what her leg looked like right now. She had hoped against hope that the pain that she was feeling was just a sprain or a strained muscle or a really bad bruise, but instead-

"-the break isn't _terrible,_ and it won't need surgery, but Marinette _will_ need a cast and will have to be on crutches for several weeks to keep her weight off of her leg while it heals. Physical activity should be limited as to not aggravate the fracture-"

-her leg was _broken_.

She wanted to curse Lila to hell and back. Hissing threats at her when they were alone in the bathroom or the hallway was one thing, but _pushing Marinette down the stairs_ was another. Now Marinette was physically injured, and as if _that_ wasn't bad enough, she was pretty sure that this would make being Ladybug pretty difficult if not outright impossible.

At least this time, there had been witnesses. Four of them, all adults, and none that Lila had noticed when she had shoved Marinette down the stairs in front of the school when they both arrived late for school. One had called up the police at once, and all of them had given the officer who showed up their names and testified that the push had been deliberate and that Lila had looked entirely pleased with herself when she saw Marinette curled up in pain. There would be a report and charges filed as soon as Dr. Fernand finished checking up on Marinette, and at the very least a restraining order to keep Lila far, far away from Marinette.

But that was all _in the future_, and didn't change the fact that Marinette's leg was _broken_ and she was going to be spending probably a _month_ in a cast. Over a month, even.

"At least you don't need surgery, Marinette!" Tikki whispered to her as the doctor conferred with her parents about how to best deal with the many, many stairs in their house. "As far as broken bones go, yours should heal relatively quickly! My powers will help."

Marinette only frowned more. _Relatively_ quickly, when speaking of broken bones healing, still wasn't fast enough. Hawkmoth rarely went for more than a couple days without akumatizing someone, after all. Unless the Miraculous magic allowed her to heal overnight, there would be problems.

"At least you have strong arms, young lady," Dr. Fernand told Marinette cheerfully, apparently finally done with talking to her parents. "Some people find themselves stuck in chairs and not moving much when they have a broken leg because they find that their arms get tired with crutches, but I don't think that you'll have that problem. Don't be tempted to overdo it, though- you _do_ want to spend a fair bit of time resting."

Marinette's frown didn't lessen. Her doctor didn't appear surprised. After all, she was in pain, and apparently going to be hugely inconvenienced for the next month and a half thanks to a schoolyard bully. There was really no way to put a positive spin on that.

"Well, let's go ahead now with setting the bone and putting the cast on," Dr. Fernand said after a pause, glancing from Marinette to her parents. "And then we can make sure that you don't have any other injuries that need to be treated before you go."

* * *

"This is a _disaster_, Tikki, what am I supposed to _do?_" Marinette groaned as soon as she had gotten home and was alone. Her parents had fussed over her the entire trip from the hospital to the police station (Lila had been expelled already, apparently, the four witnesses'' accounts plus a urgent and _very_ enlightening meeting with Mrs. Rossi enough to make Mr. Damocles decide that he didn't want Lila at his school) and then home, where they had then spent a fair amount of time moving Marinette's bedding, school things, and several changes of clothes down to the guest room for her to stay there, so she would have less stairs to deal with. She appreciated the support, but she also had to figure out what she could and couldn't do as Ladybug _right now, _in case an akuma popped up. "Transforming won't take away my broken leg, will it?"

"Previously existing injuries aren't healed by transforming, no." Tikki flitted around Marinette, giving blankets little tugs here and there to settle them more comfortably around Marinette. "So you can't transform and go out."

Marinette groaned some more.

"Normally in these situations, the Guardian would assign a few temporary holders to take your place," Tikki told Marinette, giving a blanket one final tug before landing next to her on the pillow. "They would hold on to their miraculous until you were well enough to go out again. But _you're_ the Guardian, and you can't exactly go sneaking around handing out Miraculous with a broken leg. And if you go out with any sort of crutches or anything as Ladybug, then Hawkmoth will know to look for someone who recently broke their leg and he could find out your secret identity!"

"Freaking _Lila_," Marinette grumbled. This was all _her_ fault, but at least everything had fallen apart for Lila because of it, too. Then she sighed, because harping on it would only attract negative emotions and she was _not_ in the mood to find out if being akumatized and running around on her leg would injure it further or not. "Okay. So do you have any ideas? The best I can come up with would be to transform, call up Chat Noir, and reveal my identity to him so that he can come get more Miraculous to assign to backups."

Tikki hummed in thought. "That _is_ a possibility, but- well, I think that that might be more of a last resort. We don't know who he would pick for backup holders, and all of the ones we had before- well, they can't be used again, not for something like this."

"Because Hawkmoth might suspect them first, even if they got a different Miraculous," Marinette finished. She sighed. "Right."

"And we _do_ still need the Ladybug Miraculous in play, but I don't feel comfortable with it getting assigned to just anyone," Tikki finished. "Since you've had temporary holders get possessed and turned against you before. You've always managed to escape, but not everyone could."

Marinette looked away that time. It wasn't as though she had done anything _better_ than anyone else to avoid possession, necessarily. People just tended to sacrifice themselves for her so that Ladybug could keep going. Maybe _some_ of it was skill, but luck and other people's sacrifices accounted for the rest.

"I have an idea, but I don't know if you're necessarily going to like it," Tikki said after a moment's pause. "I know that Master Fu told you to tell no one about your alter ego, but I think that you should tell your parents."

"_What?_" Marinette exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in bed and then immediately hissing at the jolt of pain that shot through her leg at that. Tikki shot off the pillow and flitted about, concerned, but Marinette forced her attention off of the pain and back to her kwami. "What do you mean, _tell my parents?_ Isn't that _more_ dangerous than telling Chat Noir?"

"We need a Ladybug," Tikki pointed out. "A temporary Ladybug that we can rely on. And didn't you tell me that your mom took gymnastics and martial arts as a kid? She's got a jump-start on what she needs to be able to do as Ladybug. And if she has any questions, then she knows who the regular Ladybug is to consult you, _and_ I can be nearby." When Marinette still hesitated, she added, "_And_ you'll know that she won't be tempted to keep the Miraculous after you've healed and are ready to go out again, because she knows you and won't want to betray your trust."

That was true. Marinette worried her lip, thinking it over. Tikki made some good points, but Marinette was so used to holding her secret tight to her chest and not letting anyone know. Even knowing that Master Fu knew had felt strange at first. _Chat Noir_ finding out... well, it wasn't _quite_ as strange of a thought. It sort of felt like they had been heading in that direction ever since their partnership first started. Maybe the timing wasn't perfect, but Marinette had always thought that her partner would be the first one to know who was behind her mask.

But her parents would be on her list of people to tell, too, once it was safe. Marinette had been close to them ever since she was a child, and her being Ladybug- well, it was a part of a life that she couldn't tell them about, something that sometimes caused conflict when she couldn't explain why she hadn't been where she had been meant to be. Once it was safe- once Hawkmoth was gone- then she had thought that maybe she could tell them and they could get back some of the closeness that they had lost over the past year and a half.

And now Tikki was suggesting that she could tell them _now_.

"I- I can see your point," Marinette said slowly, even though everything in her- well, she just _didn't want to_. But she didn't have much of a _choice_. Her mom would probably be a good Ladybug, and Marinette could keep in contact with her and with Tikki. Her mind was already whirring, trying to come up with contingency plans, _just in case _things went wrong. Some ideas were already emerging, safeguards that would make sure that if something went wrong and her parents were akumatized or hit by a mind-controlling akuma, the damage wouldn't be _nearly _as bad as it might be otherwise. "And I guess I don't really have a choice, or better options. I'll do it."

Tikki beamed. "Okay! And this might be a blessing in disguise, Marinette. I know that your absences and exhaustion have been worrying your parents, so maybe having to share the Ladybug side of your life with them will help take some of the stress off."

"Yeah." Marinette took one deep, calming breath, and then another and another, until her parents entered her room again. They were carrying a few more of her school supplies and her cat pillow this time, apparently serious about transforming the guest room into something more familiar while she was staying there. As much as she wanted to put telling her parents off, to try to find another option, a better one, she couldn't afford to wait until it was too late and there was an akuma attacking and no time to properly _explain_ things. So Marinette steadied herself as much as she could and opened her mouth.

"Mama? Papa? There's something that I need to tell you about..."

* * *

Marinette muffled a yawn after her parents had bid her good-night and headed down to their own bedroom. Her talk with them had gone better than she had worried it might, and things were all set up so that her mom would take the Ladybug Miraculous during the day, while Marinette took her earrings back at night to speed up her healing. The chest of dormant Miraculous had been pulled out and moved down to the guest room so that Marinette could reach it, and then tucked away in a new hiding spot. Everything was ready for her mom to take up the substitute Ladybug role, and yet...

No, that was a lie. There was still one thing that Marinette had to do.

"How much do you think I should tell Chat Noir, Tikki?" Marinette asked, tugging one last tangle out of her hair before tugging it back into pigtails for the night. "I mean, he _knows_ Marinette. If I tell him that I broke my leg and he finds out that Marinette _also_ broke her leg on the same day, he could figure me out. And if you were still hoping to avoid that..."

"You both have some growing to do before I would recommend a reveal," Tikki agreed. She frowned, thinking hard. "Well, the last akuma attack that you had was _two_ days ago, and it was in the morning. You can say that you broke your leg right afterwards, so there's some distance between the two. He might still be _suspicious_, but there won't be any solid confirmation that it's you."

"And then he shouldn't say anything about broken legs when reporters ask," Marinette finished. "He can just say that I was involved in an unfortunate accident and need to take a short break while I recover or something. _Short_ might not be the thing to call it, I know!" she hastily added before Tikki could scold her about trying to go back out before her leg was ready. "But we don't want Hawkmoth to know how long I'll be out. If he's always guessing, then hopefully he won't be as likely to try to take _quite_ as much advantage of my absence."

Tikki spun in an excited circle. "That's a good thought! And Chat Noir is transformed now," she added. "I told Plagg that you needed to call him. Are you ready?"

Marinette gave that a few seconds' thought, then nodded. She knew what she wanted to say, and since it wasn't her _normal_ room behind her, she should be fine. "Yeah. Tikki, transform me!"

As soon as the last of the sparkles faded, Ladybug's yo-yo rang. She answered at once, her partner's concerned face filling the screen at once.

"Is there something going on?" Chat Noir asked anxiously, before Ladybug had a chance to say anything. "Plagg's seemed worried since earlier this afternoon, and you've never contacted me like this before-"

"I've broken my leg."

Chat Noir's mouth promptly snapped shut, and his eyes grew huge.

"It happened a couple days ago, after we wrapped up with the akuma," Ladybug said, launching into the story that she and Tikki had decided on. "And- well, the doctor said that it was a pretty clean break- pretty straightforward, I mean, one break instead of a shatter or anything. And Tikki said that being a Miraculous holder would speed the process along a little, too. But it's still going to be a few weeks before I can fight again."

"A few _weeks_," Chat Noir echoed, clearly falling back on his butt. Behind him, Ladybug could see the familiar scene of the rooftops. Already, she ached to be able to go back out and run over the rooftops next to him. How she was going to survive _weeks_ without going out- well, that was going to be _torture_. "_Weeks_. How- what are we going to _do?_"

"Well, good news is that I've arranged a replacement Ladybug," she told him, adjusting herself on the bed with a small hiss. She had held off on taking her pain meds for a bit so that she could be more clear-headed while talking to her partner, and- well, she was looking forward to being able to take her meds and having them kick in again. "It was Tikki's suggestion, really. My mom will be taking over for me until I've been cleared to have the cast removed and do physical activity again."

Chat Noir perked up at that. "I'll get to meet your _mom?_ That's so cool! What's she like? I mean, I guess I'll find out," he added quickly. "But I bet she's great, just like you! She must be, if your kwami suggested her to be your substitute."

Ladybug nodded. She was _super_ lucky.

"I hope I never get taken out of commission," Chat Noir said after a moment. "I wouldn't _ever_ trust my father with my secret, and the other adults around... well, either I wouldn't trust them with it, or I would worry that they would return it afterwards. They would just, like, confiscate it, then make sure I never went out of their sight again."

Ladybug cringed. _That_ wasn't good. It was something she had briefly worried about before she told her parents, but it wasn't- it wasn't a _serious_ worry, not really. She trusted her parents more than that. "That's hard. And- well, fair warning, my dad might join you guys for a battle sometime. I had to tell both of them, and he- well, he was _really_ enthusiastic about the idea of possibly getting to be a superhero."

Chat Noir laughed hard at that. "I can't wait! It sounds fun." Then he got more serious. "I still worry, though. Being Ladybug is _hard_. Managing for more than one battle? And if we get a really difficult battle?"

"I've already thought about that, and I have an idea." Ladybug resisted the urge to shift in her seat again. "I have all of the other Miraculous, so I can still slip away and transform, and then monitor the battle from a distance- I'm still figuring out _how_, but I should be able to jump from newsfeed to newsfeed, Tikki said. If I use Sass, then if something goes wrong- well, then I can reset, as long as I got Second Chance activated in time. And I'll use an earpiece so that I can tell my mom what to do differently, and she can tell me what's going on."

"Ooh, I like that!" Chat Noir said appreciatively. "Hopefully it'll work."

"Hopefully," Ladybug agreed. She tried and failed to keep herself from yawning. "And we can adjust as we go, but I think it's a good place to be in right now. As good as it _can_ be, at least. I'd rather be out there myself."

"Well, rest and take care of yourself," Chat Noir told her. "Don't push too hard, or you can get set back again. And once you've been cleared, it might be a good idea to ease yourself back in, instead of just jumping back to full-time. Just to be sure."

Ladybug nodded. In theory, it was easy enough to say that. In reality, she knew that she was going to be itching to just _go_ again as soon as the cast was off. "Right."

"Go to bed, my Lady," Chat Noir told her, smiling gently at her. "Thanks for letting me know."

"Of course." She smothered another yawn. "G'night, Chat Noir."

"Good night, Ladybug."

Their call ended, and Ladybug slumped back against her pillows with a sigh. That was done, and- oh, she had forgotten to tell him what to say when reporters asked about Coccinelle being there instead of Ladybug. She quickly messaged him with that bit of information, then released her transformation with a sigh.

_Now_ everything was set up for her mom and Chat Noir to continue forward until her leg had healed up and Marinette could go back out again.

Maybe it wasn't ideal, but- well, Marinette hoped that things would go to plan. That was really all she could do.

* * *

_a/n: wooo new multi-chapter story! Not sure how many it'll be yet- for once, I'm starting to post before everything is written and complete- but considering that I plan to update this story every other week (schedule allowing- my cabin DOES have internet, it turns out, but as the season goes on we'll be doing a lot of traveling), I should be able to get ahead and not be scrambling to finish chapters last-minute. Hopefully. We'll see how busy it gets once my season really gets going._

_As always, comments make my day! :)_


	2. Chapter 2

Going back to school with a broken leg- well, it was pretty intimidating.

After all, their classrooms at school were divided between two levels. There was a lot of bustle and unintentional pushing as students moved between rooms when they were switching classes, and some of the doors- like the bathroom doors- weren't exactly going to be easy to push open with crutches. Then there was the worry of Chloe trying to take advantage of Marinette's hindrance to try to do something to her. Getting to her seat, slipping away unnoticed if an akuma attacked, being able to do any quality focusing when she was on her pain meds...

Well, she would have to take the day as it came. And as it turned out, it wasn't so bad after all.

Mr. Damocles pointed out a fairly hidden elevator that she could use. Kim and Ivan offered their services to piggyback-carry Marinette up and down the stairs at school if she didn't want to bother with finding the elevator between classes. As soon as he heard what was going on, Adrien offered the same thing, clearly eager to be of help. Everyone had heard what Lila had done and was horrified about ever doubting Marinette, so everything _there_ was back to normal. Alya had even made a post on the Ladyblog apologizing for posting Lila's lies and calling her out for Marinette's injury, so all of Paris- or at least everyone who followed Alya's blog- knew how terrible of a person Lila was.

And Hawkmoth didn't attack until _after_ school, which meant that Marinette didn't have to bother with slipping away. She could follow the fight from the comfort of her temporary bedroom, surrounded by pillows and blankets.

"Okay, I've managed to get into the city's video feeds," Vipera commented, watching her screen. All she had needed to get the screen on the lyre was to _want_ it, and then she had noticed a little button to push. It expanded across the middle of the instrument, large enough for her to easily follow. "And it should hop from feed to feed, whatever will get me the best view."

"Fantastic!" Coccinelle told her. "I think we've got the hang of this right now, it seems a very standard-issue akuma. We've seen far worse."

Vipera nodded. She had to agree. As far as first akumas for her mom to face, this was a pretty good one to start on. It would involve a bit of fighting, but there had been _far_ more complicated and difficult akumas before.

For the most part, she was going to stay out of things. If she talked too much, that was just one more thing for Coccinelle to keep track of. If they needed help or if she spotted an opening or a trap, then she would speak up. And of course, if she needed to use Second Chance, then she would tell them what they needed to do instead.

The fight raged on, and Vipera followed it carefully. She needed to be _hugely_ on top of things to be able to figure out when to activate Second Chance, if it was needed. It would be harder to do _now, _when she wasn't physically at the fight, so lapses in concentration were _not_ allowed.

(Oddly enough, Vipera _liked_ that. It was a challenge, something that kept her mind on the top of its game. It wasn't the usual _physical_ challenge, maybe, but the _mental_ challenge...)

It wasn't long at all before the akuma fight wrapped up, with only a few helpful suggestion from Vipera. The two superheroes on the scene fled before reporters could get close and ask any questions, and Vipera sat back with a hum, considering that.

On one hand, holding off could be a good thing. The less information Hawkmoth got, the better. The longer they could hold off making any statements- well, then Hawkmoth would be kept in the dark.

On the other hand- well, Hawkmoth had eyes. He could see that Coccinelle was different than Ladybug. He wouldn't know what that meant, maybe, but he might try to send out more akumas until he got the answers that he wanted.

Vipera leaned forward, tapping her chin in thought. More akumas would _definitely_ not be a good thing, so they would want to discourage that somehow. Even though Coccinelle had put on a good show with the first akuma and her martial arts training had shown through, inexperience was inexperience and Hawkmoth would try to take advantage of that with a difficult akuma that would put a strain on all of them. So if they could make the battles harder for Hawkmoth and his akumas...

Well, there had been some times where Vipera thought that maybe she could activate Second Chance and shorten the fight a bit. It would have required a bit more coordination- maybe Chat Noir should have an earpiece in, too, so she could talk directly to him- but that was a possibility, something that they could explore to maybe make Hawkmoth step back and reconsider sending out more akumas.

"Almost back!" Coccinelle said in Vipera's ear. "I'm going to use your balcony. That seems the safest. I'll mix it up in the future so that I don't get tracked back."

"That seems like a good idea," Vipera agreed. She waited for a confirmation that her mom was back, then detransformed. A check of the clock revealed that she was due for pain meds, and so she took one before maneuvering to sit at her desk, wincing when her cast bumped into the desk's side and sent a spike of pain up her leg.

Superheroes had to keep up with their homework, after all. Since she was going to keep being involved in the battles, even with her broken leg, that meant that she had to keep on top of her assignments and not spend too much time loitering around.

Planning for future battles would have to wait. For now, Marinette had homework to do.

* * *

Four days in, and Paris was apparently worried about their missing superhero, even with Chat Noir's announcement about Coccinelle just being a short-term temporary replacement while Ladybug got some much-needed rest. They had seen temporary heroes before, of course, but rarely _without_ both of the other superheroes- and _never_ without Ladybug.

It took everything in Marinette not to laugh, really. She wasn't _missing _from the fights, not really. There had been three battles so far, and she had been overseeing all of them, watching, waiting for a sign that she needed to step in.

Vipera had used Second Chance exactly once, and that was to warn Coccinelle and Chat Noir about a sentimonster rearing its head. She seemed to have a sixth sense about when it would be a good idea to activate her power, even if there was nothing that was obviously off yet. And nothing had gone seriously wrong in that instance, but Coccinelle and Chat Noir were able to respond and take out the sentimonster without a problem before it even got a chance to get going and interfere with their battle with the akuma.

Marinette had spent a lot of time talking with Sass to figure out how to get full use of her powers, tapping in to that sixth sense and being able to manipulate the fight more effectively. While her parents could deal with her mom being gone for fights- they had enough seasoned staff in the back kitchens of the bakery that her dad could cover the counter for a while- it was better not to have to be short-staffed for long. If she could shorten fights with her use of the Snake, then Marinette wanted to do that.

For now, though, things were going well.

"Chat Noir and I sometimes did patrols, back when we were starting out," Marinette told her mom as they worked on dinner together. Marinette could sit at a tall chair at the counter and chop veggies, facing her mom as they worked. "We haven't done that a lot recently, because we've been so busy with school and it's hard to keep up with everything sometimes, but it was fun to hang out." She made a face. "Except when we were just patrolling to keep Mr. Damocles from hurting himself. That was just frustrating, because it was _every. single. day_."

"Chat Noir has suggested that we do some patrols over the weekend," Mrs. Cheng told her. "Or, rather, run some loops around the city so that I can get some practice in with your yo-yo. I thought it was a good idea, because that's definitely an area that I'm struggling with. And then he's suggested some fighting practice, too, just to make sure that I'm on the top of my game."

"I think it's a really good idea!" Tikki piped up. "Since Chat Noir is used to a certain level of fighting ability at his back, and he might automatically do something that doesn't work as well when he doesn't have Ladybug next to him. The two of you have been fighting alongside each other for so long, you can practically read each other's minds, it seems. Coccinelle might be temporary, but she'll be doing enough fights that it's important to have some of that teamwork and training there."

Mrs. Cheng nodded as she dumped a cutting board of chopped veggies into her frying pan. "Exactly! And Chat Noir seems like such a nice boy, so it'll be nice to get to know him better," she added. "I want to know the boy that my daughter's been spending so much time with!"

"Ma_man!_" Marinette complained, immediately embarrassed. "We're just friends, you know that!"

Her mom laughed, giving the sizzling veggies a stir. "I know, but I like knowing your friends, too! And you can't deny that Ladybug and Chat Noir seem _quite_ close," she added with an impish smile. "I mean, I think all of Paris saw those photos of you two kissing-"

Marinette yelped. Loudly. Tikki was giggling, the little traitor. "It was because he got hit by Dark Cupid and I was trying to break him out from under the spell, because that's what works in fairy tales!" She pouted at her still-giggling mom. "And it _did_ work, because he snapped out of it, so there!"

"Of course, dear," Mrs. Cheng said. There was still an amused edge to her voice, not entirely convinced, but Marinette wasn't going to keep on arguing. It wouldn't get her much anywhere, after all.

"I _do_ worry about him, though," Mrs. Cheng added after a minute of silence. "Besides just the hero thing. He said that he was homeschooled for most of his life-"

Marinette was pretty sure that her jaw had hit the floor. "Ma_ma!_ He's- you're not supposed to talk about civilian lives! It's too dangerous, we could find out each other's identities before the kwamis say it's okay!"

"I've not given away anything that would give me away, Marinette," Mrs. Cheng told her. "Which- well, would be where you go to school and the bakery, really. Anything else I would think wouldn't be specific enough to give anything away. There's two million people in Paris, Marinette. The chances of you two knowing each other enough that me saying anything else would result in a reveal surely can't be _that_ high-"

"Chat Noir has had brunch with us, Mama!" Marinette protested. "He knows civilian-me! It's not like I've never interacted with him on this side of the mask before!"

Her mom considered that. "Oh. Hmm."

"Exactly!"

Instead of promising that they would _never talk about their civilian lives again_, Mrs. Cheng smiled. "Speaking of that brunch- what _was_ that all about, dear? Your dad was under the impression that you had confessed your love for Chat Noir!"

...Marinette had admittedly temporarily forgotten about that bit.

"He spotted me on my balcony pretty much _right_ after I detransformed," Marinette hastened to explain, before her mom could get any more ideas. "And wanted to know why I was there. So I had to distract him, and come up with a reasonable explanation for why I was there-"

"_Because 'I live here'_ wasn't good enough?"

Marinette froze. She...hadn't thought of that. "Oh. But it was late, and I was really, _really_ tired!" she added on hastily when both her mom and Tikki started to giggle. "So I just blurted the first thing that came to mind and _it doesn't mean anything I just thought that playing fangirl was a good idea!_"

"I suppose we should stop teasing her before she explodes," Mrs. Cheng told Tikki, amusement lacing through her words. "I feel like Chat Noir might be upset if she did, since he's already looking forward to her return so much."

Marinette pouted.

"Anyway, as I was saying before- just because Chat Noir knows you doesn't mean that you know him, Marinette- he's been homeschooled, and I get the impression that he's not had great adult role models in his life," Mrs. Cheng continued over Marinette's spluttered objections. "He's been asking me about things that have happened with his friends that he hasn't understood, since he hasn't had many good friends growing up and learned pretty much everything about social interactions from _anime_, of all things. So I think having more time to properly discuss things and have some adult guidance during our training sessions will be good for him. Akuma battles aren't the most ideal for giving a good dose of parental advice."

Seriously, Marinette couldn't believe her ears. Her mom had apparently decided to _mother_ her partner. What was next, inviting him over for dinner?

...she wasn't going to suggest that. Her parents would probably decide that they should all transform and go out to eat together, or maybe have a picnic in the park.

"I think Chat Noir will benefit from it," Tikki agreed happily. "And clearly he knows that something is off with some of his social interactions if he's asking about them. Really, it's a compliment, Marinette!" Tikki added when Marinette looked dubious. "He's decided that whoever raised you must have given good advice, because he sees you as well-adjusted."

Marinette gave a short nod. Maybe Tikki had a point, but- well, she was still adjusting to the idea of Chat Noir telling her mom more about his personal life, because maybe there were two million people in Paris, but how many people were close enough to their area of Paris to be able to respond to akuma attacks in the same window of time that Chat Noir did? And out of _those_ people, how many of them were teenaged boys?

(_Blond_ teenaged boys who had been homeschooled for at least part of their life. That- that was getting uncomfortably specific.)

(Maybe there were more of them than Marinette thought. Maybe Chat Noir wasn't _actually_ blond. Maybe she shouldn't think about it too much.)

"Anyway, I think I'll be spending a little more time transformed than initially planned," Mrs. Cheng finished, giving her pan on the stove a little shake before checking to see how cooked the vegetables were getting. "Just to take advantage of the ability to dole out a bit more parental advice. _And_ to train, of course. We want to have the best possible chance of getting the Ladybug Miraculous back to you safe and sound!"

"Of course, Maman," Marinette agreed. She paused, considering, then looked over at her mom again. "Do you want to hear about some of our past akuma battles? I mean, I know all of Paris sees news coverage of most of the fights anyway, but..."

Mrs. Cheng beamed at her. "Would I like to hear about the battles from Ladybug herself, who was in the thick of things? Of _course!_"

Marinette beamed, her mind racing to come up with a good fight to start with. "Well, a couple months ago..."

* * *

"Marinette, dear, wake up."

Marinette groaned at the voice disturbing her sleep, automatically trying to roll over to bury her face in her pillow before the blanket rolls that she had set up to keep herself from disturbing her leg too much stopped her. Another tap at her shoulder made her frown again, and then her eyes slowly fluttered open to see her mom standing next to her bed, carrying a flashlight in one hand. She frowned.

"Mom? What's going on?"

"There's an akuma attack and I need to borrow the earrings," Mrs. Cheng told her as she helped Marinette sit upright. "You don't have to stay up for this one, Chat Noir and I will be careful."

"No, I want to help," Marinette insisted, the fog already clearing away from her brain as adrenaline rushed through her system. She pulled out the earrings, passing them to her mom before digging in her dresser drawer for the Snake's bracelet. Aside from Tikki's healing abilities being stronger when she was with Marinette instead of with her mom, _this_ was why she always took back the Ladybug overnight, so that Coccinelle wouldn't sneak off without the Snake's backup. "So both you and Chat Noir should have your earpieces in, okay?"

"If you insist, dear. But remember, if you get tired, just let us know and go back to bed. Rest will help your body heal faster, and I know you've been tired." Mrs. Cheng slid the earrings into her own ears before smiling at her daughter. "We'll be safe, I promise."

With that, she went out the door. Marinette looked to Sass.

"Tonight?"

"I think that you're ready," Sass agreed. "You're tuned in enough to the fights to be able to really use Second Chance to its full extent. And a late-night fight...I don't doubt that both Coccinelle and Chat Noir would welcome the opportunity to have a much-shortened fight and go back to bed."

Marinette nodded. Still, the idea of using Second Chance so many times in a row- well, it was a little worrying. But she had been _practicing_, she hadn't just been thrown into the deep end during a battle, so in _theory_ things shouldn't be too bad. "Okay. Sass, _transform me!_"

Green light filled the room, and Vipera settled her lyre on her lap with the screen pulled out. She could already get feed of the akuma near the Kidz+ TV station, even though the other superheroes hadn't gotten there yet, which meant that she got an early look at the akuma's powers.

An early look at the akuma's powers, plus a good view of which way the akuma was facing, what the corrupted object was, and how much attention the akuma was paying to its surroundings at any given moment.

_Perfect_.

"Okay, I have a visual on the akuma," Vipera said into her earpiece, noticing the icons at the top of the screen that told her that both Coccinelle and Chat Noir were out and both had their earpieces in, so both would be able to hear her. "And I want to try something new tonight with Second Chance, to direct the battle from here. I'll know what the akuma is planning on doing before it does it, and we can have the shortest fight ever." She paused and rethought that statement. "Well, aside from the battles with Mr. Pigeon and Mr. Rat. I don't think that those take more than a couple minutes now."

Chat Noir snorted in amusement at that last bit. Her mom was unconvinced.

"I don't think that two in the morning is the best time to be trying new strategies, dear," she told Vipera. "Perhaps we could try it during the day sometime?"

"Sass said that tonight would be perfect," Vipera told her teammates. "Because I'm tuned in enough to the sort of sixth sense I was telling you about and familiar with all of the uses of the Snake's powers. It should shorten up the fight."

"I'm all for trying it," Chat Noir said at once. "If you think it'll work, then I bet it will. Worst-case scenario, it doesn't go nearly as well as you think it will and you need to re-power and we have to fight like we normally do, without the Snake's back-up. Just don't- don't use Second Chance _too_ many times, like Aspek did."

"I don't plan on it," Vipera told him, because she _didn't_. Adrien hadn't been nearly as tuned in to the Snake's powers as she was now, and he hadn't had the preparations she had had, either. "And I'll be careful, promise. So for this to work, you _have_ to listen to me and do what I say, or else there'll be no point."

"Okay!" Chat Noir agreed at once. "You know you can be my puppeteer any time you want, my Lady."

Coccinelle sighed, like she was going to say something about that, then decided not to. "I'll go along with it as well. Just let us know if the plan changes."

Vipera nodded. _Obviously_. "Of course! So, how close to the Kidz+ building are you?"

"One block," Chat Noir reported. "And I can see Coccinelle, she's coming at my two o'clock."

"Okay," Vipera said, her mind already whirring as she watched the akuma onscreen. "The akuma is near the TV station and moving north, but not very fast. The butterfly is in his belt, I think. Watch out for the wand, he's using it to turn people into statues. I don't see a sentimonster yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if one shows up. It would be easiest to do an ambush attack from behind, but make sure that you wait for an opening. He likes swinging around periodically."

"Got it!"

Vipera nodded, eyes intent on the screen and occasionally swapping out for other cameras to track her mom and Chat Noir as they drew closer and to scan the rooftops for any signs of a sentimonster or the supervillains. There was no sign of them yet, but there _had_ been a delay in the superheroes' response.

"Dropping in in three, two, one-" Chat Noir murmured in her ear, and Vipera set the time.

There was no going back now.

The next- well, it was four and a half minutes for the superheroes, but closer to an hour for Vipera- were tense as Vipera followed the fight from all angles, resetting often and directing the superheroes' almost every move. It was a mental exercise as she had to remember all of the previous instructions that she had given plus a new one or two on top, in the correct order and with the right timing.

She wasn't Ladybug for nothing, though, and years of childhood games where she and her parents played the add-on story-telling game came in handy. There were maybe two times when she had nearly flubbed up the order of her commands, but she hadn't and so Coccinelle and Chat Noir had been able to wrap up the fight in practically no time.

"That was _fantastic_, Vipera!" Chat Noir said breathlessly as the akuma fluttered away. "Great job! I hope you didn't have to cycle _too_ many times!"

"I kept it under control," Vipera said, because really, all things considered, she _had_. She glanced at her Miraculous. "I'm going to detransform soon. Be careful going home, in case Hawkmoth decided to come out."

"Got it, my Lady!" Chat Noir said cheerfully. Seconds later, Vipera's Miraculous beeped one more time and the transformation released. She grinned at Sass, exchanging a fist bump.

That had been _amazing._

"You'd make a good full-time Snake," Sass said appreciatively as Marinette wriggled back down into a lying position. Her mom probably wasn't going to bother returning the earrings now, since it was only going to be a few hours until it was time to get up, so she might as well go to sleep. "Not everyone figures out how to- well, how to _weaponize_ Second Chance like that. Though that's what makes you a great Ladybug as well, because you can turn anything into a tool to get an advantage."

Marinette grinned, pink staining her cheeks. "Thanks."

"It's only the truth." Sass yawned, floating over to her dresser and inhaling the snack that she had left out for him there. "You did _really_ well tonight, and you'll only get better with practice. But for now- you've been up longer than your partners. It's time to rest. Good-night, Marinette."

Marinette smiled back, reaching over to flick off the light. "Good night, Sass."

* * *

_a/n: And an update! Meant to post this earlier in the week, but I ran over a dead deer in the road with my VERY low-clearance car a couple days ago and so had to spend more time (and money) than I would have liked at a car repair place to get my undercarriage cover (I think that's what it's called) temporarily fixed and then replaced. Deer and I are not on speaking terms at the moment._

_As always, comments make my day! :)_


	3. Chapter 3

The news of the _incredibly_ short akuma fight didn't take long to spread through Paris. There wasn't much footage of it, only what the night news anchor had managed to shoot from inside of the building before getting hit himself, but the guards and everyone living nearby had seen how Coccinelle and Chat Noir had worked together in perfect tandem, practically anticipating the akuma's every strike.

(They _had_ been anticipating every strike, but that was- well, that was being picky, really, and also the superheroes weren't about to give away their secret weapon.)

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to deter Hawkmoth. He attacked the very next afternoon, and Marinette had to hobble her way out of class for a "bathroom break". Thankfully she was getting faster on her crutches- though she was still being _careful_, Tikki, _thank-you-very-much_\- so it wasn't as hard as she had worried to slip into an empty closet in the library and transform. Chat Noir was already out, and it wasn't long before Coccinelle's symbol appeared on Vipera's screen.

"I'd like to try the same thing as last night," Vipera told them, settling herself up in the closet, half-perched against a shelf. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but hopefully the fight wouldn't last very long. On their end, at least. "If there's two quick take-downs in a row, we might be able to unnerve Hawkmoth a bit, and he might take a step back on the akuma attacks."

"Because he would think that Coccinelle and I are an even more formidable team or something and it would be dangerous for him to go up against us," Chat Noir filled in. She could hear the grin in his voice. "Nice thinking. Are you up for using Second Chance a ton of times again, though?"

"Yeah. And if I end up using it more than I planned, I can always take a nap after school." Vipera allowed herself a smile at her partner's concern, then buckled down to focus on the fight, focusing on the news and camera feeds coming from the area. Once again, she was getting some early intel on the akuma, and _this _one seemed to be an akuma-sentimonster partnership. That by itself made things more dangerous, but if they could figure out the possessed items on one go-round and then she would know already with the reset...?

That could work.

"Or would I need to bother?" Vipera murmured to herself, eyes scanning the scene. The sentimonster teaming up with the akuma was oddly shaped, the perfect size to get stuck if, say, a manhole cover was unexpectedly missing and it tripped in. One solid whack over the head or yank from below would probably wedge it in well enough to remove it from the fight, leaving Coccinelle and Chat Noir to deal with the akuma- and with Mayura, if she had read the flash of blue along the rooftops correctly.

Hopefully it was _just_ Mayura and not Hawkmoth as well. He tended not to come out as often as his blue-skinned counterpart, though the _why_ was harder to say.

Personally, Vipera was of the opinion that it was poor planning. If Hawkmoth had come out with Stoneheart the first time he had shown up, it would have been all over for the superheroes. Instead, he had lurked in his lair (she _assumed_ that he had a lair, at least- maybe he was just lurking in his bedroom) and waited for the superheroes to actually become competent fighters.

That, and Hawkmoth was a _coward_.

"I don't see any signs of Hawkmoth personally being there," Vipera finished as she relayed everything that she had seen to her teammates. "But I might recommend coming in from below and capturing the sentimonster first, or at least having _one_ of you doing that. It keeps running really close to the manhole cover near the base of the Arc- Chat, you know the one?"

"Yep!"

"You want us to identify manhole cover locations from _below_ now?" Coccinelle sounded incredulous. "I mean, I can see your plan, but..."

Chat Noir laughed. "The maps on our weapons work _wonders_, really. And we've used that manhole- I'm not going to say _a lot_, but enough that I'm familiar with it. I just wonder how we're going to keep the sentimonster from pushing itself back up, even if we yank it down to wedge it in."

"Oh, that's easy," Coccinelle said cheerfully. "There's some men over here who have ropes- I'm going to ask if I can borrow one. Then we can lash the feet to the ladder and buy ourselves some time."

"Fantastic." Vipera flipped to another camera, scanning the area. "Let me know when you're close?"

"We've met up and dropped down into the drains," Chat Noir reported a minute later. "Headed towards the manhole cover. Are they still in the same spot?"

"Oddly enough, yeah." Vipera glanced over the area again and- okay, it wasn't hard to figure out _why_. Apparently even Hawkmoth's seemingly smarter sidekick sometimes made dumb tactical decisions. "Mayura's found a good hidey-hole and so she doesn't want to move. Chat Noir, you know the place where-"

Vipera explained quickly, and it only took her partner a few seconds to figure out the place she was talking about. By the time the two other superheroes reached their manhole cover, the beginnings of a plan had been put into place. Coccinelle would trap the sentimonster while Chat Noir ambushed Mayura from behind. With two of the three threats contained or distracted, Coccinelle could take on the akuma on her own once she popped out of the drain system.

Well. _Visibly_ on her own, at least. Vipera would be keeping an eye on her _and_ Chat Noir at the same time, so she wouldn't _really_ be on her own.

It didn't take long for the superheroes to reach the right sewer, and then Chat Noir moved out and into position. Seconds after he sent his ready signal, the manhole cover twisted and slid out of place, nudged to the side quietly enough that when the sentimonster made its next rounds, it tripped over the loose cover and stumbled straight into the open hole. There was a jerk, and then it started flailing. The akuma abandoned its latest victims as a purple mask flashed around its face, and then it turned towards the trapped sentimonster, clearly worried about already being down an ally. Vipera set her timer, and then focused, mind frantically sorting through all of the information being thrown at her.

Chat Noir's fight, his earpiece set to continuously stream audio. Coccinelle and the akuma battling it out, her audio _also_ on. Keeping an eye on the sentimonster to make sure that it wasn't wriggling free. Switching between video feeds to watch both of them, re-setting and giving instructions and weighing how helpful those instructions were. Making adjustments when things didn't work as well as she had hoped.

At least her teammates weren't bantering with the supervillains. Their audio was limited entirely to quick updates or suggestions for the next go-round, which helped her keep her focus. Chat Noir was entirely serious as he faced off with Mayura, holding his own well enough. He only needed the occasional instruction as he fought, though that was in large part because they weren't actually _trying_ to defeat Mayura, just hold her off.

Four minutes later, the akuma was defeated and the amok-possessed item had been knocked away from Mayura and _also_ purified. Mayura frantically knocked Chat Noir back and fled as the Cure rushed over Paris, and Vipera let her. It wasn't worth another go-round attempt to see if they could defeat her this fight.

"Should I ask how long that took you?" Chat Noir asked breathlessly over the earpiece as he re-joined Coccinelle. "Because I could hear a lot of instructions going on."

"I didn't really keep track," Vipera admitted, slumping on her little strip of clear shelf. She was going to need a nap after school let out, so she could tell that it had been a long time, but- well, she had kind of done that to herself, hadn't she? She had been the one to suggest that her teammates split up, even if she hadn't needed to interfere with Chat Noir's fight that much. "But I'll be fine. Hopefully that'll scare Hawkmoth off a bit."

"Or we'll have a sentimonster, an akuma, and _both_ supervillains out next time," Chat Noir said with a laugh. "Because they'll figure that eventually they can outnumber us."

Vipera snorted. "Then we'll send out Dad. I'd like to see their faces when he comes out."

Coccinelle started giggling. "Oh, that _would_ be funny! And you know your dad would love to help out. I don't know if we could have both of us come out during the day, though."

"Right. That's something to take into consideration." Vipera glanced at her Miraculous. She was almost out of time. "I might have to start carrying backups with me, either that or tell you where I keep them. But we can talk later- I'm out of time. See you later!"

Her teammates called their good-byes, and then Vipera detransformed. She grinned at Sass- even if she was mentally exhausted, they had done a _really_ good job- and then listened carefully to make sure that no one was around before popping out of the closet and heading back to class.

Even though she was still interrupting her day, Marinette was glad that she was still being involved in the akuma battles in some form. It kept her mind sharp, forcing her to keep up with noticing- well, _everything_\- and she wasn't getting distracted in class, worrying about her mom out there battling Hawkmoth when she didn't have the same amount of experience that Marinette herself did.

Marinette couldn't help but smile to herself as she headed back into the classroom and hobbled back to her seat. When she first started being a superhero, she had hated missing out on class to go battle akumas. Now, when she had the chance to sit back while her leg healed and not worry about it... well, she couldn't help but want to still be involved.

* * *

The city was _ecstatic_ about the apparent new trend in akuma attacks. After months of attacks that- with some exceptions, of course- usually took closer to half an hour to clear up, two attacks in a row that were wrapped up in under five minutes was _amazing_.

It also sparked a _lot_ of gossip about how, exactly, it was being done.

"Well, _obviously_ the weak point was Ladybug," Chloe sniffed at school, inspecting her fingernails as though she was otherwise completely disinterested in the conversation. "She's been replaced by someone older and wiser, who wouldn't do something _stupid_ like take my Miraculous away from me."

Nino snorted loudly. "Yeah, right. If _that's_ the case, then why haven't you gotten the Bee back yet, Chloe?"

"And didn't Chat Noir say that it's just temporary?" Adrien chimed in before Chloe could snap back, probably with the argument that Chat Noir should get replaced by someone, too, because _obviously_ he was the weak link now keeping her from getting the Bee back. "Because Ladybug was out sick or something?"

"Or something," Alya agreed. "He wasn't very specific about it, was he?" She tapped her phone. "The consensus on the Ladyblog is that Ladybug's family is going on vacation and she couldn't get out of it without being suspicious. I mean, Chat Noir didn't say she was sick exactly, did he? Just that she was getting some much-needed rest."

The class considered that.

"So maybe Ladybug will be out for the rest of this week and then Chat Noir will have a substitute so that _he_ can get some rest?" Rose suggested. She shrugged when they all looked over at her. "Maybe Chat Noir was just telling the truth and we're all reading too far into it?"

"I can't see either of them just sitting back and not coming out to the battles if they were in Paris, though," Alya countered. "That's just not their personality, is it? Or at least that's the impression I've gotten from them," she added quickly. "So I think something else is up. If they just wanted to relax, I feel like they would pull out more full-time holders so that battles would go faster."

"Right, and they should choose _moi_-"

Alix snorted loudly. "Right, give the one temporary holder whose identity _all of Paris knows_ their Miraculous full-time! There's definitely _nothing_ that could go wrong there!"

Chloe scowled.

"Kids, please," Ms. Bustier pleaded, casting a disapproving eye over the class. Everyone settled down, though not without a fair amount of grumbling. "Let's just be thankful that whatever the superheroes have going on at the moment is working out so well, and try to be positive so that we don't add to their workload. I know we're all concerned about Ladybug, but all we can do is hope that she's okay and will be back defending Paris soon enough!"

Most of the class nodded. Sabrina started to, then caught Chloe's furious glare and promptly stopped, shrinking away from her glowering friend.

"Some people on the Ladyblog are already hoping this team becomes permanent, because they've been doing so well," Alya whispered once Ms. Bustier turned around to write on the board. She leaned forward so that Nino and Adrien could hear as well. "Because people are so tired of akuma attacks, and the last two attacks went so fast."

"But the previous- what? Three, four? They didn't go nearly as smoothly," Nino whispered back. "They aren't going to count the most recent two as just flukes for now?"

Alya shrugged, keeping one eye on their teacher. "I don't know. I think it's too early to call. But the fact that there was such a change, and so suddenly- either they've just _really_ found their stride, or something else is going on. And I don't think that we've seen all of the Miraculous powers out there. Who says that there isn't something else going on behind the scenes that's making them fight so well?"

Marinette hid a smile. _Ladybug_\- well, Vipera, technically- was the thing behind the scenes that was making such a change, but they weren't going to tell anyone that until- well, probably until Hawkmoth was defeated. It was _much_ too useful of a tool to give away.

"People are seriously preferring _Coccinelle_ over _Ladybug?" _Adrien hissed, sounding thoroughly distressed. "I mean, I know Coccinelle is doing a good job, but Ladybug's done so much!"

"Class, I can still hear whispering," Ms. Bustier told the board dryly before Alya could respond. "Please settle down."

Adrien and Nino promptly whipped around to face the front. From her seat, Marinette could tell that Adrien looked somewhat distressed, ducking his head to exchange a few quick words with Nino that she couldn't hear. Marinette frowned at that, wondering what could be upsetting Adrien so much. She knew that he liked Ladybug a lot, so maybe he was offended on her behalf that anyone would think that Ladybug should step down in favor of Coccinelle.

Honestly, Marinette wasn't surprised that that opinion existed, though it _did_ sting a little that people would so easily consider replacing her. She knew that the interest of akuma attacks had worn off for most of Paris, and even the novelty of superheroes was starting to ebb. People wanted to know why they hadn't defeated Hawkmoth already, never mind that they were _trying_ and they were dealing with adults who were bigger and stronger. Most people understood that they were trying, at least, and so they liked the superheroes, but others just wanted to be done with the whole thing, no matter how it was done.

Marinette could understand that. Even though she sometimes enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to defeat an akuma and of course she loved the freedom of swinging around the city, having to interrupt her day to deal with the akumas...well, it got old for her, too. So now that people were seeing an older superhero all of a sudden and the fights were going _really_ well and they didn't know the real reason why. Of _course_ they would assume that the change was due to the change in superhero lineup.

Hopefully they wouldn't openly protest Ladybug's return, once she was well again. _That_ would be disheartening.

The rest of the day flew by. Adrien and Nino flanked Marinette as she moved from class so class to keep her from getting jostled, and while there was a lot of talk and speculation about the superheroes, the teachers kept most of it under control. They were there to _learn_, as Madam Mendeleev rather testily pointed out when she caught Alya whispering with Alix mid-class, and not to gossip about what the superheroes were or were not up to. That could wait until _after_ school.

Besides, she had added, people were gossiping _far_ too much for a simple two fights in a row that had gone well. That _hardly_ provided enough data for anyone to call it a trend.

Thankfully for Marinette's sanity, Alya had to go babysit her sisters right after school and so couldn't lead the continued discussion on what might be going on with the superheroes. She had tried inviting Marinette, but one comment from Marinette about the wisdom of combining Alya's rambunctious sisters with Marinette's broken leg and crutches had Alya backing off right away.

Which meant that Marinette was free to go home and catastrophize on her own, a day's worth of whispers and overheard gossiping enough to make her start doubting everything.

"I thought you seemed to brush off that comment earlier, no problem," Sass commented as Marinette tried and failed to pace on crutches before flopping down on the couch, wincing as her leg got jostled a little more than she had intended. "Because it _is_ dumb that people are being so impatient with the superheroes. You and Chat Noir have gone through a _lot_ of struggles recently! You've lost Master Fu as a mentor and your temporary holders got outed. Hawkmoth and Mayura solved whatever weird energy was polluting Duusu and the Peacock, and now they're stronger. Now you've broken your leg! And still, you've found solutions and you've kept going. I'd say that most people would have lost the battle by now."

"Yeah, but..." Marinette sighed. She hadn't wanted the comments to eat at her, but they _had_. "The fights, with any luck, will keep going like the last two. People are going to get used to short fights, and then I'm going to come back out all out of shape, and things- well, things are going to take longer again. And people are going to talk. And if we don't give away our secrets, then people are going to assume that I'm the weak link. It's a no-win situation." She slumped a bit more, than attempted to straighten. "And the public doesn't know about all of the other stuff we've had to deal with, either. All they see is Hawkmoth and Mayura coming out and us not managing to defeat them, even though they're _right there_ and not hiding like they did before."

"If they're reasonable, they'll have to admit that fighting up to four times as many supervillains as you did before will be harder, and you can't be expected to do four times as much work with just two of you."

Marinette sighed. "Yeah, but- okay, so I've read the Ladyblog, and people are confused about why we haven't pulled out the temporary holders we had before and keep them on more. I don't think there were many people in this area of Paris who didn't get hit by Chloe's bees, so nobody besides her and Hawkmoth and Mayura actually _know_ that people's identities got revealed."

Sass considered her. "Did you tell your temporary holders?"

"Of course! I didn't want them to get upset that we passed them over when we need to get out those Miraculous next time. They were angry at Chloe, but I asked them to _please_ try to let it go, because I really didn't want to have to fight any of them right now." Even the thought of it was completely awful. "And they listened, thankfully."

"Hmm." Sass gave that some thought. "Perhaps you could assign them different Miraculous? Either that or assign them the same one but require that they have a _vastly_ different look and a different name. Could you use them again then- and perhaps assign some of them as permanent holders?"

Marinette immediately made a fact at the thought, though she certainly didn't mean to. "Honestly? Maybe I could re-use them as temporary holders, but I wouldn't dare give any of them the Miraculous permanently. Some just haven't been out enough for me to get a good read on them, of course. Chloe is a hard _no_ and should have been a no from the start. Alya... she's my friend, but she also has the Ladyblog and not the greatest filter about what should and shouldn't go online sometimes. _And_ she's gotten Akumatized, like... a lot. Not _Mr. Pigeon_ a lot, but more often than most other people in Paris. She's got a temper. And Nino... well, he's Alya's boyfriend, and they knew about each other before. If I tap him for either temporary or long-term superheroing, he's going to assume that Alya will get to do the same thing and then tell her and then she'll get mad again."

Sass considered that. "That would not be ideal."

"Not at all, which means that I need to find more potential holders." Which was a _lot_ of work, truth be told. Adults had an advantage with the endless power usages and no timer, but a disadvantage in the fact that- well, they had jobs and would be noticed going missing on a long-term regular basis. Teenagers had the limitations of timers, single power usage, school, and parents, when- well, the last of those _really_ depended on the parent in question.

Kagami, for instance, was a strong fighter. She had showed a lot of promise in her time as a superhero. But she had a strict mom and went to an equally strict private school, which meant that she would no doubt get in a _lot_ of trouble if she had to leave class on a rather regular basis. That by itself meant that Kagami could really only be a temporary superhero even if she changed her transformation. Just like the others.

(Besides, even with a changed transformation... well, that still seemed too risky.)

_Ugh_. This superhero stuff just kept on getting more and more difficult.

Marinette sulked through her after-school snack, trying not to loiter on thoughts of- well, _everything_ to do with the superhero part of her life. Even though she knew how important she still was in the fights, it was hard not to feel a bit down, a bit useless.

She was limited to helping while sitting in a closet or a bedroom, instead of throwing punches and kicks and being there in person.

"Marinette? Did something happen at school?"

"Oh, hi, mom," Marinette said, trying not to sound too down. "No, school was fine-"

"Her friend was saying that some people want Coccinelle to stay, since the last two fights were so short," Sass reported. "And Marinette was dwelling on that."

She gaped at him. "That- that's _tattling!_"

"But it's important to not bottle everything up, too," Mrs. Cheng told her. She came over to stand by Marinette, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Marinette, you _know_ that we wouldn't be doing so well without you helping. And four-minute battles? That would be _completely_ out of the question without you."

"Yeah, but..." Marinette tried not to sigh. She and Sass had already discussed this, and really, there wasn't much else they could cover.

Still, she filled her mom in.

"-and I don't want to _stop_ doing the short fights, because I know that it's important for you to be able to get back to the bakery, and Chat Noir probably wants to get back to his life, and I don't exactly want to be missing class, either," Marinette finished. "But when Ladybug comes back, I know that fight times will shoot back up again."

"You could keep using some of the techniques that you've picked up now!" Tikki suggested right away. "The using cameras before you go in to figure out the akuma's powers and what the possessed item is from a safe distance, and potentially spotting Hawkmoth and Mayura ahead of time. That's given us a real advantage."

"And maybe towards the end of my time as Coccinelle, we can admit that Ladybug's been watching with another Miraculous and that's why she's doing so well, because you've been helping and directing the fights," Mrs. Cheng offered. "We don't have to say it was the Snake or mention the Second Chance uses, because I can see where you might be worried about Hawkmoth getting ideas from that. But by saying that you've been helping out so much and that's why we're doing well, that's telling the public that the difference isn't necessarily because of _me_."

Marinette nodded, her mind whirring. That...was a good idea. It was safe, because they could just refrain from sharing too many details, but Paris would know that Ladybug had been a large part of the success that Coccinelle and Chat Noir had been enjoying.

Hopefully that would make her transition back to being Ladybug easier. Of _course_ people would expect a well-trained trio to do better than a duo, even if the third member of said trio wasn't physically present. Maybe there would be people pushing for them to add a third permanent member in the role that Vipera had been filling, but- well, hopefully that would quiet the people who were pretty much ready to swap Ladybug out for Coccinelle. And if not, it would at least lessen their numbers.

For the first time since that morning, Marinette could really relax again, her mind set at ease and no longer veering off the rails catastrophizing. Even though it was going to be _weeks_ until Ladybug re-joined the battles in person again, they had a plan in mind.

And that made _all_ the difference.

* * *

_a/n: Sorry for the delay- my internet went out for forever, and then I've been distracted with trying to catch back up on what's going on in the world (...nothing good)._

_As always, comments make my day!_


	4. Chapter 4

Having a broken leg _sucked_.

Really, that shouldn't have been news to her at all, Marinette reflected as she slouched in her desk chair. She had already been dealing with everything that came along with a broken leg for a week and a half now, and the frustration about not being able to move around like normal or do her normal activities had long since set in. The extra planning ahead- how she was going to get from one classroom to another, what she needed to do if she wanted to make a quick (or not-so-quick) trip to the bathroom- was annoying, but not a huge deal. But not being able to go out with her friends like she normally did?

It wasn't something that Marinette had considered, but- well, going out and wandering around the city just wasn't a good idea on a leg that was still fairly early on in the healing process. Maybe her friends could have adjusted what they were going to do on their outing, but...

Well, it still just sounded so _tiring_. Maybe it was a good idea to make sure that she wasn't just sitting around and not moving as much as she should be, but there was also such thing as _too much_ movement. It would be all too easy to hit that level when she was out with her friends and then be too exhausted to be able to focus on an akuma battle.

So Marinette was stuck at home, knowing full well that her friends were out having fun without her.

She had anticipated the frustration that came with not being able to be a superhero in the way that she was used to. It was easy enough to figure out that the activity where she was super-active would be off the table for the foreseeable future. She had guessed that her leg would make things at school a bit more complex. But Marinette _hadn't_ anticipated how a simple day outing with her friends would suddenly be too much to do.

"I'm sure that you'll be able to hang out with them again soon," Tikki commented from where she was perched on Marinette's shoulder. She had decided to hang out with Marinette for the afternoon, since it would be easy enough for Mrs. Cheng to come up and get her if an akuma attacked. "Your leg will heal up and not hurt so much when you move around, and then you can go out more. And maybe you can just go out with them for part of the day and leave early! It's always an option."

"I suppose." Marinette suspected that that would be easier said than done, honestly. If she was out with Alya and the other girls, she would be having fun and probably want to _stay_ out. Then the exhaustion would creep up on her and she would end up regretting the day, no matter how enjoyable the first part had been. "And I know that I'll be back out there soon, once my leg is better and I can enjoy it, but right now it's just another reminder of what I _can't_ do."

She had found a work-around for her superhero life, a way to be involved without physically being out on the battlefield. But for social outings with her classmates?

She had tried doing the same thing as Adrien always did when his father didn't let him come out, with just video-calling her friends and getting carried along virtually, but that hadn't lasted longer than ten minutes before Marinette had made her excuses and ended the call. Instead of helping, it made her feel worse. Tagging along by camera was just a reminder that she wasn't there with them, and she had found herself constantly craning her neck to try to see what else was going on beyond the camera and feeling thrown off by not being able to see everything. Besides, Alya had been the one holding the phone and she had an annoying habit of waving her hands around unthinkingly when she got animated about something. She could mostly quash that habit during akuma fights, when she was focused on the akuma or on the superheroes, but when she was just out with her friends? The camera went _everywhere_.

There was a _reason_ why it was usually Nino or Marinette who held the phone when Adrien was video-calling them. And even when it was Nino- well, he wasn't the best at holding the phone still, either.

Oddly enough, Marinette wasn't interested in getting motion sickness from a video call when she was already feeling crummy because of her leg.

Hopefully she would start feeling significantly better soon and could tag along on outings again. Right now, she was just sore and tired so much of the time, and hopping along on her crutches just sometimes seemed like so much of a _chore_.

Sighing, Marinette turned her attention to her schoolwork. There was really nothing more to work on, though, so she turned her attention to her sketchbook instead. She tried to draw, but all that came out were uninspired doodles. After two full pages of absent, aimless doodles, Marinette pushed her sketchbook to the side and considered her options. What _did_ she want to do?

Or, more accurately, what did she want to do that she could _actually_ do?

Nothing was coming to mind.

"Maybe a change of scenery is all you need!" Tikki suggested. "You could go up to the living room and do something there."

"Or I could go downstairs and help run the counter," Marinette suggested, already liking that idea better. Being upstairs by herself was no fun, and her mom _did_ have a chair by the counter that she could sit in. It would be a nice way to help her parents, after they had been helping her so much with her Ladybug duties. "I think I'll do that, at least for a bit. And maybe I can text the girls and let them know and they can come visit!"

"Ooh, I like that idea!"

Decided, Marinette made her careful way downstairs. The bakery was buzzing- as it usually was at this time on Saturdays, but this seemed even busier than normal- and her mom was busy at the counter. Marinette could see cupcakes in the front kitchen, set out on the table and clearly ready to be decorated when Mrs. Cheng had the time.

She clearly had no time at the moment.

"I'll take the register, Maman," Marinette said, step-hopping up to the counter. "You can decorate."

Mrs. Cheng looked relieved as she stepped back. "You're a lifesaver, Marinette."

For the next forty minutes, Marinette perched on the stool at the counter and rang people up, bagging or boxing up their purchases before sending them on their way. Her mom stepped in to help box things up when the line got too long, but mostly worked away at decorating the cupcakes and cakes that Mr. Dupain brought out for her. It was a good system, and Marinette let out a relieved breath as the last of the line was finally sent away, cheerful and satisfied.

"Good job, sweetheart," Mr. Dupain told her as he bustled past, his arms full of baskets to refill the shelves. "That helped out a bunch."

"It's better than sitting around upstairs," Marinette said cheerfully, taking advantage of the pause to make sure that everything in the cash register was straight and tidy. "I was just floating around and grumbling about being bored."

"Normally you're as busy as a bee, so that must have been a change for you!" Mrs. Cheng laughed. "I suppose it doesn't help that your sewing machine is still upstairs. I can bring it down later, if you want."

Marinette beamed, and then almost immediately remembered everything that she would need to actually be able to _use_ her sewing machine and drooped. "It's- it's probably not worth it. I would need a bunch of my fabric and my thread box and buttons and- and all sorts of things, really, and that would be too much to store downstairs. If I had a specific project in mind, maybe, but..."

"Well, just let me know if you want it for anything," Mrs. Cheng said cheerfully. "It's not a problem to bring thing down." She finished up a cupcake with a flourish and set her piping bag down. "And done! Ahead of schedule, even, since Marinette took over the counter- hello, how can I help- oh! Adrien, dear, how nice to see you!"

Marinette spun back around on her seat and nearly toppled over, saved only by her dad catching her as he passed by. Sure enough, Adrien was in the bakery, looking a bit uncertain of himself as he approached the counter.

"Are you hear for the pastries or for Marinette?" Mrs. Cheng asked cheerfully, wiping her hands off on a damp towel before joining Marinette at the counter. "Or both?"

"I- well, I, uh," Adrien started, and then clearly gave himself a shake. "Er- both, I guess? Fencing finished early and Nathalie gave me permission to hang out with my friends. So I thought that I could maybe come hang out with Marinette, unless you're busy?"

Her parents both beamed. Marinette hoped that she wasn't as red as she felt.

"We're not busy at all," Mrs. Cheng assured him. "Marinette was just hanging out down here because she was bored-"

"And because I wanted to help!" Marinette added on. "I wasn't _just_ bored!"

"-but the rush is over now, so if she wants to go, she's more than free to," Mrs. Cheng continued, as though Marinette hadn't spoken. "It'll probably be a bit boring down here, actually, now that the lunch rush has passed."

Adrien perked up at that, his gaze swinging to Marinette. "So, do you wanna hang out?"

Marinette nodded, unable to keep herself from smiling. Her disappointment from earlier about not being able to hang out with the other girls was gone, because _now_\- well, now she was getting to hang out with one of her friends, too.

"Great!" Mr. Dupain boomed. He bustled around the shop, picking out an assortment of goodies one by one and dropping them into a bakery bag before shoving it into Adrien's arms. "A snack for the two of you. Will you be going upstairs, or out to the park, or...?"

Adrien's eyes flew to Marinette at once, obviously giving her the choice. Marinette didn't have to think about it for long.

"The park might be nice, if there's an open bench," Marinette said. She pushed herself to her feet and hopped over to the sink to wash her hands. Her mom had talked to her before about forgetting to wash her hands after handling money and before eating something, and it wasn't a mistake she was going to make again. "I've been inside too much."

"Even if there's not a bench, I'm sure people would move so that you can sit down," Adrien assured her. He waited for her to make her way around the counter, then led the way towards the door. "And if not- uh, could you sit on the ground if I helped you down and back up? Except no, we don't have a blanket-"

"Oh, we have a picnic blanket in the hallway!" Mrs. Cheng called after them. "You could always put it on the bench, too, if that's where you end up sitting. It would just make things more comfortable."

With that, she dashed into the back. A minute later, she returned with a brightly striped blanket that Marinette recognized from more than a few picnics in the past. Adrien took it with a quick _thanks_, and then they were back on their way.

As it turned out, all of the benches were _very_ full. Adrien glanced around, then glanced questioningly at Marinette.

"I can sit on the ground," Marinette decided after a moment. It would be more pleasant if she and Adrien got to sit on their own blanket instead of being crammed onto a bench with some random grandparents. "I'll just need to have my leg stretched out."

Adrien nodded, then set out to find the perfect place to set out the blanket. It took a few minutes to pick out a spot that wasn't near playing kids, or near a garbage can, or too close to the noisy street, but finally he got the perfect spot. Marinette held the bakery bag while Adrien meticulously spread the blanket out, and then they took a few minutes to get Marinette comfortably settled.

"It's the perfect day to be in the park, really," Adrien commented as he sat down as well, making sure that he wouldn't jostle Marinette's leg. "I'm glad that we decided to go outside. I've been inside all day, between homework and piano and fencing. And a snack!"

Marinette had to laugh at that as Adrien eagerly tore into a croissant. "Ah, the real reason why you came to see me and not Nino!"

"No, it's just- Nino offers snacks, too!" Adrien protested. "I mean, maybe the snacks are crackers or packaged cookies, but he _does_ offer snacks. I-" He worried his lip, clearly considering his next words. "I overheard yesterday when the other girls were planning to get together and you couldn't join them. And I know how much it sucks to not be able to go out with friends, and I know you hadn't been hanging out with them before as much as usual because of Lila, so when I had the gap in my schedule..." He shrugged, glancing away sheepishly. Marinette felt her heart skip a beat and her cheeks flushed red.

Really, how was she _not_ supposed to be heads-over-heels for him when he said stuff like that? It was so sweet.

"Anyway, I like hanging out with you," Adrien added shyly, picking at his croissant before taking another bite. "So it wasn't a hard choice."

"I'm glad you came over," Marinette told him, finally finding her words even as her cheeks flared even redder. She was sure that she looked like a stop sign by now, but- well, Adrien was always kind enough to overlook that. "I don't know how you manage when your father doesn't let you come out with us. I was about to keel over with boredom."

"You, bored? Whenever I've seen you before, you always seem busy." Adrien polished up his croissant and glanced over at her. "I mean, Class President duties, commissions, your own projects, homework..."

"I've had more down time than usual lately," Marinette admitted. She pulled out a cookie and nibbled at the edge. "And no commissions, so I don't have my sewing things downstairs where I can use them. I suppose I _could_ look ahead and see what duties I might have coming up as Class President and just get it all done ahead of time if I can. Then I can have more free time once my leg is better." She winced. "...in theory."

"Yeah, plans get thrown off really easily with akumas and Hawkmoth around, don't they?" Adrien glanced over the box of goodies, then picked out a cookie for himself. "If you need any help with that stuff, let me know. I think there's a pretty good chance that Nathalie would let me help, since student government stuff is, like, really nice on a resume. Never mind that I wouldn't put it on a resume since it would just be helping you, not doing all of the heavy lifting with the planning like you do, but she might think that it would make me more inclined to maybe run myself in the future."

"Honestly, if you wanted to take Alya's place and run with me, I don't think she would complain," Marinette told him. "She's grumbled more than a few times about paperwork taking away time from the Ladyblog or her time with Nino." Honestly, Alya would jump at the chance to both offload her responsibilities as Vice President and to push Adrien and Marinette together. And- well, as long as Alya didn't then decide to linger in a doorway or by the window and wriggle her eyebrows at Marinette and make her nervous, then Marinette was sure that it would go pretty well.

If Alya decided to make things weird, then- well, then they might have a bit of a rocky start, but they would recover in time. Hopefully.

Adrien laughed. "Tempting, since I'd get to hang out with you more. I'd have to run it past Father and Nathalie first before I could promise anything, of course."

Marinette grinned. Maybe Adrien would forget about it by the time Class President elections rolled around again, or he might decide that he was actually too busy to take on anything else, but- well, it would be nice to daydream about all of the time that she and Adrien would get to spend together if they were working together on the class representative duties.

Maybe paperwork wasn't very _romantic_, but- well, relationships weren't built entirely on romance, were they? Besides, if it would allow Adrien to come and hang out more...

"So what all is involved in the Class Representative job?" Adrien asked, polishing off his cookie and leaning back on his hands, looking over at Marinette. "Like, planning class parties?"

"Class parties, keeping track of birthdays and whatnot, field trips, helping organize school fundraisers," Marinette told him. She sighed. "Honestly, I don't think all of that is _supposed_ to be my duties. The other representatives don't really do the birthdays or the field trips, that's all on their teachers. I don't know why Ms. Bustier does it differently."

"Maybe she thinks it'll help in the future?" Adrien suggested, but even he didn't sound particularly convinced. "...or maybe she's behind on grading because of akuma attacks and so she's, ah, delegating tasks."

"To her students, who sometimes fall behind on homework because we get extra homework to keep up with the curriculum even with akuma attacks," Marinette sighed. "Naturally."

Adrien made a face. "That- yeah, that's not very fair. But at least that probably means that you'll have less to do if you stay Class Rep next year, right? New school, new teachers, _hopefully_ ones that will organize their own field trips."

"Oh, I hope so." Their schoolwork was only going to get more difficult in lyc_é_e, and Marinette already sometimes found herself running short on time because of all of her responsibilities. And- well, she liked being able to help out her classmates as Class President, but it was just so much _work_ sometimes.

"But that's months away still," Adrien added before Marinette could think about it too much. He nudged her good foot with his toe, smiling over at her. "So, what's new? How was the bakery earlier?"

Several hours later, the last of the treats had been polished off and Adrien finally had to leave. He looked startled when Nathalie texted him, apparently not having realized how much time had passed, and then immediately moved to help Marinette up.

He was _so_ careful as he helped her to her feet, making sure that she wouldn't accidentally put any weight on her bad leg. Marinette was sure that she was turning red again as Adrien wrapped his arms around her to lift her up, his cheek and chin pressing into her shoulder because of the way he was holding her. The moment passed once she was on her feet, though, and Adrien made sure that she was steady on her feet before stepping back to a gentlemanly distance and turning his attention to getting the blanket up and folded.

"I'm glad we got to hang out," Adrien told Marinette as they headed back to the bakery. He held the door open for her, letting her through in front of him. His bodyguard's car was already parked in front of the bakery, and Adrien waved to him before ducking in long enough to pass the picnic blanket back to Mrs. Cheng. "See you on Monday?"

"Yeah," Marinette agreed, beaming after him. "See you on Monday."

* * *

"I can't believe you were on a _date_ with Adrien and didn't text me and let me know! I could have gotten photos!"

"It wasn't a _date_, Alya," Marinette said for what felt like the fifth time. Her best friend had come over to work on homework together in the peace of the Dupain-Cheng apartment, since her younger sisters had friends over and the Césaire apartment was currently- well, _loud_. Her mom had apparently mentioned Adrien having come over the previous day when Alya passed by her, and now Alya wouldn't drop it. "It was two friends hanging out."

"By yourselves, in the park, chatting for _hours_ over fresh pastries! That's totally date material!"

Marinette fixed Alya with a long look. "You _do_ realize that the pastries came from my parents, right? It wasn't like Adrien went out and bought some fancy pastries for the express purpose of eating them with me."

Alya groaned, practically slamming her palms over her face. "Ugh, you _two_. Fine, fine, it 'wasn't a date', whatever you say. But it sounds so cute! I bet you're going to start dating soon, though! He's obviously interested in you."

Marinette flushed at the thought, wondering if she really _was_ close to getting to date Adrien. He _had_ been really, really sweet during their impromptu picnic, and they had never hung out _quite_ like that before. But Adrien was also just a really nice person, and he _had_ told her that he wanted to come over because he knew what it felt like to not be able to go out with friends. So maybe it wasn't a great idea to start getting _too_ excited and get ahead of herself.

"Either way, I would have _loved_ to get pictures of you two," Alya added on after a moment, homework still forgotten in her backpack on the floor. Whether or not she would actually remember it- the reason why she had come over in the first place- still remained to be seen. "And all of us would have loved to see it-"

Marinette groaned at the idea of all of the other girls spying on her and Adrien hanging out and chatting. That just... well, it sounded stressful, and like something that would absolutely result in her stumbling over her words and feeling off-kilter and uncomfortable.

She was absolutely _not_ going to tell Alya ahead of time next time that Adrien came over to hang out. There was absolutely no way that Marinette wanted people (_especially _people who weren't her parents) watching her every move when she was alone (or "alone") with Adrien. Every move, every word, every smile and laugh and sharing of cookies would be analyzed and over-analyzed.

She also wasn't going to bring up Adrien's offer to take over Alya's role as Vice President. Alya would _definitely_ read far too much into that.

"Anyway, we missed you on our outing after you had to hang up," Alya added after a minute. "I know it would have been hard for you to keep up and enjoy it as much in person, though. We're trying to figure out something for next time that wouldn't involve walking or standing around, but I don't know when that'll even be yet. Nora's out of town next weekend, so I might be pretty busy with babysitting, and we don't know what the weekend after that will look like."

"If we're too busy, I might be off crutches by the time we go out again," Marinette joked, opening up her notebook. Even if Alya was completely distracted by the news about her and Adrien, she could still try to be productive. "Then there wouldn't be any additional planning needed!"

"Oh, don't exaggerate!" Alya laughed. "We're not _that_ busy. You've still got a ton of time in the cast."

Marinette could only groan. It seemed like the days were inching by in slow motion sometimes. Cast-off day seemed _ages_ away. "Oh _gosh_. Don't remind me."

"Hey, I'm sure the time will flash by and the cast'll be off before you expect," Alya told her. She grinned, suddenly impish. "And look on the bright side- think about how much attention Adrien's been giving you ever since your leg got broken! Maybe you'll end up wanting to keep the cast on a little longer."

Marinette snorted. Somehow, she _really _doubted that.

* * *

_a/n: Sorry for the delay! I had an insane last week- I got back from our final work trip and immediately had to pack up and head from TX back to MN, no time to relax between the two. The craziness is going to pick up again next week (I have to drive out to my next job, another 3-day drive (ugh)), but hopefully it'll settle down after that._

_As always, comments make my day!_


	5. Chapter 5

"Why do you always put Sass away when you get Tikki back for the evening?" Mrs. Cheng asked curiously one evening as she and Marinette worked together to make dinner. "Surely it wouldn't be that hard to have both of them out, would it? They seem to get along just fine."

"Wearing more than one Miraculous tends to drain the energy out of whoever is wearing them," Marinette told her mom. It was _still_ weird to be openly talking about the Miraculous like this, even two weeks after her leg broke, but Marinette was slowly getting used to it. Besides, despite how strange it felt, it was nice to be able to talk with someone besides Tikki about the Miraculous again. "I've done it before, of course. For only a couple hours is fine, but I don't want to risk slowing down how fast my leg heals at all."

Mrs. Cheng's eyes grew wide, and she stopped chopping up vegetables for their dinner, slowly setting the knife aside. "Oh, my. Yes, I can see where you maybe wouldn't mess with that."

"Marinette has worn over a _dozen_ Miraculous at once before," Tikki said proudly, settling down on Marinette's shoulder next to Sass. "And handled it throughout an entire akuma fight! Most people would collapse and lose consciousness at once."

"Most people would collapse with _far_ fewer Miraculous," Sass agreed. "It was really impressive!"

"That sounds dangerous," Mrs. Cheng fretted. "Who knows what that could do to your health in the long-term?"

Tikki giggled. "As long as our holders aren't multi-wielding long-term, it's fine! We give our holders enhanced healing abilities, since it's never good for them to be out of commission for long. So maybe people are tired in the short term, but they start healing as soon as they go back down to one Miraculous."

"And if they take on too many Miraculous and pass out?" Mrs. Cheng worried, glancing at Marinette. "And can't take the Miraculous off? Could the kwamis-?"

Sass shook his head. "No, not unless they had given us express permission before collapsing."

Mrs. Cheng looked even _more_ worried. "Have- have people died from that before?"

"I was careful, mom!" Marinette protested, knowing what her mom was so worried about. After all, Master Fu had been concerned as well, and had insisted on checking in with her every day for a solid two weeks after the Kwami Buster fight. "Splitting myself with the Mouse Miraculous made the effects a lot more spread-out and easier to bear. And Master Fu was there when I put them on, he could have pulled off some Miraculous if I couldn't take it!"

"It's a sign of a strong spirit," Tikki said proudly. "I'm very proud of her."

"We are, too," Mr. Dupain boomed cheerfully, bursting into the room with a basket of leftover loaves of bread. "What exactly are we discussing here? Marinette, of course, but specifically?"

Marinette tried not to sigh as her mom and the kwamis filled her dad in. Her parents had always been proud of her, but now that they knew about her double life as Ladybug- well, they were impossibly more proud not and they weren't at all hesitant about showing it. That she was able to juggle even more than they had originally thought and still be managing as well as she had- well, they had been impressed.

"Papa, what's the bread for?" Marinette asked as soon as they had finished talking, eyeing the basket. It wasn't unusual for her dad to bring up a single loaf or a few buns for them to have with their dinner, but this was more than their usual amount unless they had company. "Are there people coming over?"

"No- oh, I forgot to tell you, dear, I'll be going out on a bit of a patrol with your partner this evening. Not late, since I need to stay on a baker's schedule, but if Hawkmoth is going to scale back to only harder attacks, I need to get in more practice." Her mom smiled. "And Chat Noir loves it when I bring snacks, of course. He's a growing boy who's getting plenty of exercise. Did you know, the last time I brought treats, he managed to identify what bakery I had gotten things from just by taste? I had made sure that I didn't bring anything that had our logo on it, but apparently he's familiar enough with the bakery that he can pick out our products just by tasting them!"

Marinette _blanched_. "Ma_man_, what about secret identities?"

"I didn't say that we had _made_ them, just that I brought treats and then he guessed where they were from. _I'm_ being careful with secret identity stiff, dear. It's really more your partner who isn't, but- well, I won't share too much of what he's said." Her smile turned sad. "Not all of it would be mine to share, either."

Marinette blinked, considering that, then decided to push it out of her mind for now. She had known for a while that Chat Noir didn't have a great home life- he had never said anything specific, but there had been a good number of hints and offhand comments- but she didn't want to pry.

"That's very cool that he knew where you had gotten things," Tom said, nodding in approval. "A lot of people go 'oh, if it's just bread, there's no difference'-" he made a face "-but he must be one of those people who slows down and properly enjoys his food enough to pick up on what makes us different." He shot a sly look towards Marinette. "I don't suppose you've changed your stance on making Chat Noir our future son-in-law? Absence is meant to make the heart grow fonder, after all!"

Marinette promptly turned bright red. "Pa_pa!_"

"To be fair, Adrien also seems to really enjoy what we make in the bakery," Mrs. Cheng chimed in, only making Marinette's blush grow worse. "And what we cook at home, too."

"Ah, yes! That's a fair point." Her dad tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe we should expand the range of things that you bring with you to share with Chat Noir. I know he liked the things we made for brunch, but he didn't gush like Adrien sometimes does."

Mrs. Cheng huffed. "Oh, the boy was just nervous and put on the spot! It's not fair to compare them, really, is it, Marinette?"

Marinette could only bury her face in her hands and groan, already looking forward to dinner being over and being able to escape this whole conversation by hiding in her room.

It was weird enough for her parents to know about her double life. For them to apparently be so shipping her- _Ladybug_-her- with Chat Noir...

Seriously, when had her life gotten so _strange?_

* * *

Two and a half weeks into her superhero sidelining, Hawkmoth appeared alongside Mayura and both a sentimonster and an akuma. Marinette considered that, considered the odds, and then took the temporary chair lift they had installed- a rented one, courtesy of Lila's bank account- down to the bakery to fetch her dad. It was nearing the end of the day, so it wouldn't be hard for one of the back bakery workers to cover the counter for ten minutes- five for the superheroes to move on-site, five for the actual fight- and then Marinette could take over until her parents returned.

A Turtle Tom would be-well, no one in their right mind would want to cross him.

"I'm sending the Bee, too," Marinette told her dad, pressing a second box into his hands. "Chat Noir has done fusions before, he can handle it. Then you guys can take one fighter out in one shot and have it be three against three instead of three against four."

"And you don't just want a fourth fighter out there?" her dad asked. Marinette shook her head.

"It's too many people to keep track of. That, and- well, Queen Bee was Chloe, and she never should have been a Miraculous holder in the first place. I just went back to her because she had experience." She made a face. "But with the hissy fit she threw when Chat Noir and I told her no more- when she joined Hawkmoth for the day without being akumatized first- she ended up revealing almost all of our teammates' identities. So we're definitely not going back to her. And I don't want to have two completely new people out there at once."

"Solid logic," Mr. Dupain said cheerfully. "All right, I'll deliver the Bee to Chat. I'll see you- no, sorry, _hear_ you out there?"

"Of course, papa!"

Marinette watched him leave- he was going to find an alleyway to transform in, since he would be a bit too noticeable leaving the bakery already transformed- then took the chair lift back up to her temporary room to transform, taking several deep breaths to steady herself as she did.

This was going to be the biggest fight that she had guided as Vipera. There were going to be a _lot_ of moving parts to remember and keep track of, and that was pretty intimidating. The akuma and sentimonster were the biggest priorities- she knew from experience that once those were defeated, the supervillains tended to flee pretty fast- but she had to make sure that whoever was fighting Hawkmoth and Mayura stayed safe, too.

As soon as Vipera pulled out her lute to get set up, she could see her three teammates were out. Her dad was still moving, racing to catch up with Coccinelle and Chat Noir, who were clearly waiting for instruction. Vipera hastily pulled up her video feeds, doing her best to catch up on the situation as fast as she could. Soon enough, the news would break that the superheroes had been seen out and about and where they had last been spotted, and they would lose part of the element of surprise.

"Ah, nice choice on the Bee," Chat Noir said cheerfully as soon as Tanker arrived and handed over the box. There was a crackle of static as he transformed. "A very a-_bee_-ling choice."

Vipera groaned. "_No._"

"And I look un-_bee_-lievably handsome," Chat Noir continued, the smug grin clear in his voice. "In fact-"

There was a muddle of muffled words on the other end of the line and then mercifully, the puns stopped.

"Right, so use the Bee right away to take someone out," Chat Noir said after a moment. "Got it, my Lady. Are we ready?"

Vipera took a moment to breathe, falling into her normal state of- well, focus, but also connection with the Snake's powers. "Ready. They're moving south- if you can circle around to the north, you might be able to surprise them. Da- Tanker, maybe hang back a little. You're a little more. Uh. Noticeable."

Tanker laughed. "Okay. If you say so."

Onscreen- thankfully, Sass had been more than fine with accommodating her request for more screens, so that she could have multiple views plus a map of Paris with where her partners were all up at the same time- the akuma and a sentimonster raged on. Hawkmoth and Mayura were staying largely to the side, sometimes not even visible. Clearly they were banking on the superheroes not seeing them- or perhaps they were assuming that Ladybug was out of town and so the superheroes wouldn't have access to the backup Miraculous, so in turn it wouldn't matter if they knew about the supervillains being there. Coccinelle and Chat Noir would have to come out either way, after all.

The supervillains were going to regret that assumption soon enough. After all, the trio out in the field was carrying not one but _two_ extra Miraculous with them in their initial push, something that rarely ever happened. Normally Ladybug ended up retreating to grab an extra Miraculous or two mid-battle, since she and her partner could generally handle the akuma battles themselves.

Hopefully it would give them a serious edge this time. It probably wouldn't be able to happen _often_, since Marinette was often at school when akumas attacked, but this one time everything just seemed to come together perfectly.

"Getting close," Chat Noir murmured in his earpiece. "And- oh! _Sting!_"

Vipera bit back her _already?_ when she spotted her partner on-screen He had managed to sneak up on Mayura and, as she watched, slammed his trompo into her back. Mayura froze up with a cut-off squawk. Hawkmoth let out an angry yell, and Chat Noir was forced to dodge away from Mayura as the akuma of the day wildly shot beams of light in his direction. As soon as he had an opening, Hawkmoth dashed over to Mayura and grabbed her up, hauling her stiff body away over the rooftops as the akuma covered his escape.

Vipera blinked. _Well. _That was one way to kill two birds with one stone. Now they just had to finish up the fight with both the akuma and the sentimonster before Hawkmoth could stash Mayura somewhere out of the way and come back.

"I see the possessed item- it's the belt!" Coccinelle announced, peering over a rooftop. "Vipera, can you activate the timer? I want to know if our weapons and deflect those blasts, and that's the safest way to do it."

"Of course. In five, four, three, two, one- _set_." Vipera gave a sharp nod to herself as she set time zero. Onscreen, her teammates surged forward, weapons spinning or- in Tanker's case- simply held out in front of him. The akuma fired, and several seconds later, Vipera hastily reset.

"Okay, the weapons _do_ deflect the beams, but then they reflect off wildly," she told them as the surge repeated. "Dodging is better, so you don't accidentally send the beams at each other!"

Chat Noir snorted out a laugh as he dodged straight into a roll. "Let me guess- last time, we did just that?"

"Yeah, two of you were taken out." Vipera winced at the memory. "That wouldn't have gone well- Chat, _dodge left!_"

With three on-site fighters and only the sentimonster and akuma to deal with, it only took a half-hour's worth of corrections to turn the battle into a four-minute smackdown. Most of those corrections had to do with stray reflected beams- those were just _annoying_ to deal with, she didn't envy the superheroes out there- and because of that, most of her comments had to do with ducking at certain times.

"That was _great_," Chat Noir said cheerfully, once everything had been set to right with the Cure. "_Really_ good job, my Lady. These fights are going so smoothly- or at least on our end they are. Did that take many tries?"

"Not _really_," Vipera told him. "Nothing awful, at least, and I really only had hints that were easy to remember this time." It really _was_ sweet of him to worry. Her mom had mentioned more than once before how concerned Chat Noir was about her using Second Chance, and she could understand why. If the full five minutes- or _almost_ full five minutes were reset again and again and again, that could add up to a lot of time, time that only she really remembered.

...somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if it would be considered abuse of the Miraculous if she used the Snake in the morning to snag a few more minutes of sleep after her alarm went off.

(It probably wouldn't work.)

"And _really_ good job with that Sting first thing," Vipera added quickly. "That was smart thinking, taking Mayura out. I thought you would go for the akuma or the sentimonster, honestly, but what you did was _much_ better."

She could imagine the small smile and the slight blush on Chat Noir's face as he murmured, "Thank you, my Lady."

Praise almost always made him strangely bashful, or at least when it was coming from her. It was pretty adorable, actually.

"I don't think I was really needed at all," Tanker commented with a booming laugh. "Better safe than sorry, though, I suppose, and it was an _interesting _experience to be able to jump from roof to roof. I don't think that I would want to do that on a regular basis, though."

Chat Noir laughed. "I'd say it grows on you, but I actually really enjoyed it from the start, so..."

"I want to be out running on the rooftops," Vipera said grumpily. It was funny, really- when she had very first started being Ladybug, she hadn't wanted anything more than to be back on solid ground as soon as possible, her feet solidly under her and _not_ dressed in magical spandex. Now? "Or running at all. Crutches are getting old _really_ fast."

"I'd offer to carry you on a piggyback loop around town, my Lady, but your parents have already forbidden it," Chat Noir told her. "Something about the jostling probably not being good for your leg?"

Vipera pouted, then sighed. Even with as antsy as she had been feeling, it wasn't worth risking injuring her leg further. Her parents were right. "I'll survive without it." Her Miraculous beeped again, and she added, "I have to go, but good job, everyone."

"And to you, too!" Chat Noir chirped again before her transformation finally gave out. Marinette grinned at Sass, handing him a treat before hauling herself out of bed and reaching for her crutches. She had to get downstairs and cover the counter fast, before her parents' employees started wondering about them.

As she did, though, her mind returned to the problem she had thought of earlier, before the fight really started. Today they had been lucky, and she had been at home to fetch the extra Miraculous. If she had been at school instead...

Well, maybe she could have called her mom up, but that depended on Mrs. Cheng not having left yet. Coccinelle could always turn around and go back to the house, of course, but... well, it was probably better if they minimized the number of times that Coccinelle returned to the bakery while transformed. The risk of someone seeing her...

Maybe that should be a last resort sort of thing.

Marinette frowned in thought. Really, she needed to be able to get to the Miraculous Box quickly, and then get whatever bonus Miraculous they needed to her teammates so that they could either double up or bring the Miraculous to a temporary holder. And _that_ would be impossible-

-except it wasn't. After all, the Horse existed. She would have to charge up between portals, of course, and then her mom could bring the Miraculous back after the fight. All Marinette would have to do would be to always carry the Horse- in a _super_-safe spot, of course; even if Lila was no longer at the school, she didn't want to risk Chloe or Sabrina digging through her bag, or Alya accidentally stumbling on it- and she would be able to get back to her room right away.

Another bonus: not having to direct a fight from a random closet or study room. It would be _much_ safer and more comfortable to sit at her desk.

It would probably be less risky if she made a secret pocket in her bag, maybe one protected by a small lock. Marinette could make that tomorrow, probably, and have it in place by Monday. Then she would _really_ be ready for anything.

Marinette smiled to herself as she took over the bakery counter, her mind already whirring with ideas of how to install the pocket without it being obvious. She had fabric that would match the lining of her bag, so _that_ was easy enough, but she would have to hide the stitching from the pocket on the outside of somehow. Maybe some applique flowers would be just the thing, a fun little touch to really make the backpack personalized while hiding the seam lines and distracting from any odd shapes in her bag. Add in some embroidered vines that would twist and turn between the flowers, and any odd seam stitches left visible would soon be forgotten. It would all have to be hand-stitched, since her sewing machine was upstairs and it would be difficult to use inside of the backpack anyway, but that was fine. The stitching would be even easier to hide that way.

Hopefully her parents would get back soon. Marinette was already itching to get upstairs and start sewing.


	6. Chapter 6

Marinette entered school Thursday morning to find Chloe and Adrien in what appeared to be a _very_ heated discussion in the corner of the classroom. Chloe's expression was switching back and forth between furious, pleading, and absolutely aloof as they talked, and at one point, she stomped her foot. Adrien flinched at that, but only for a fraction of a second before he squared his shoulders again and raised his chin, clearly determined.

Marinette ducked her head down and tried to focus on her sketchbook. Normally when her classmates got into arguments with Chloe she tried to step in and provide some backup, but Adrien and Chloe's relationship was different. As much as Marinette didn't understand it, the two of them had a history and in the past, her trying to step in didn't work out so well. It just put Chloe on the defense, and made things _harder _to solve instead of easier. Even if she kept her distance- well, Chloe would try to throw a fit about her eavesdropping.

So she did her best to _not_ eavesdrop, but it was hard not to overhear the stray word here and there. "Bully" and "unacceptable" came up several times, as well as more than a few exclamations of "ridiculous!" from Chloe. And then, quieter but still loud enough to be heard, "but you _promised_..."

"That promise was based on the assumption that you would _continue_ doing better, Chloe," Adrien said firmly, stepping away from Chloe. "And you haven't. And I can't tolerate you bullying my _other_ friends."

Chloe turned up the sniffles. "So you're breaking your promise? To be friends forever?"

Marinette couldn't resist the urge to glance up at that. This was usually the point when Adrien would cave to whatever Chloe wanted, when she turned on the tears. This time, though, his expression didn't waver.

"You're just being manipulative now," Adrien said, stepping back. "I told you _why_. You just don't want to do any work to be better, and that's not fair. I shouldn't have to be making excuses for you all the time."

"Excuses?!" Chloe snapped, and now it was impossible _not_ to overhear. "Excuses for _what?_"

Adrien looked absolutely incredulous. "Uh, for your bullying? For how you behave? For how _mean_ you are to my _other_ friends? For-" He gave himself a shake. "Actually, you know what, I'm not going to go over this all over again. I've already told you my reasoning. You know what you need to do better on if you want me to be your friend again. And I'm not going to argue about it."

And with that, Adrien turned away from Chloe, steeping away and heading back to his seat. As soon as his back was fully to Chloe, Marinette could see the nerves surfacing in his expression, nerves that he hadn't let show before. Clearly he was going out of his comfort zone by standing up to Chloe, but this time he was standing firm.

Her heart skipped as Adrien let out a short breath before pulling himself together, shaking off his nerves and squaring his shoulders up again before sitting down in his seat. That- that was _really_ attractive. One of her biggest reservations- one of her biggest _concerns_, really- about Adrien and her crush on him had been his friendship with Chloe (as nonexistent as that friendship seemed sometimes, considering that he seemed to prefer hanging out with basically anyone else) and his reluctance to call Chloe out for her bullying.

It- well, it had been frustrating, sometimes. But _now_\- this time, Adrien hadn't backed off when Chloe grew upset. Yet, at least. It was still early.

Either way, it was a step in the right direction. Hopefully.

Chloe sulked for the entire morning. She sent pouty looks at Adrien on and off all morning, clearly hoping for a change in heart, but Adrien didn't even glance in her direction. There were a few times when he almost did, but he caught himself right away.

"Ugh, I hope she doesn't get akumatized again," Alya muttered as she glanced at Chloe sulking in her seat as everyone else packed up for lunch. "Every time Chloe gets akumatized, something bad happens. Or at least it seems that way."

Marinette nodded in agreement, automatically checking her bag to make sure that the box with the Horse in it was still safely stashed in its pocket. Thankfully, with the change in Guardians and the corresponding change in the shape of the Miraculous Box, the shape of the temporary housing boxes had changed too, to a more circular shape that somewhat resembled her yo-yo, and it didn't make nearly as strangely-shaped of a lump as the other box style would have against the fabric. With that change- well, hopefully it wouldn't stand out enough for anyone to question what it was. So far, she had been lucky.

"Then again, maybe Hawkmoth won't bother," Alya mused after a pause, gathering up the last of her things and heading for the door. Marinette followed on her crutches at once, not wanting to miss the latest on superhero gossip. "After all, it's been- what? Five days since the last attack? I think that one really rattled Hawkmoth, because everyone that was nearby swore that Mayura got hit by Sting right away and the superheroes just dodged _all_ of the akuma's beams, no problem. And actually- did you know Max analyzed the footage with Markov, and _he_ says that the chances of that happening, especially with a completely new team member in the mix, were, like, single digits. So it's _insane_ that they managed it. And in such a short, intense fight, too- like, they got right in there instead of trying to fight from a distance!"

Marinette hid a smile. Those sounded like fairly accurate percentages, honestly, considering the number of resets that she had had to do for entirely getting-hit-by-akuma-beams reasons. "That's pretty cool."

"Yeah, and I _wanted_ to post his calculations and analysis of that, but Nino pointed on that it might spur on the Ladybug-vs-Coccinelle debate and I didn't want that." Alya let out a long sigh. "This whole thing- all of the sudden inexplicable improvement- it's _weird_. When Coccinelle first showed up, the fights were pretty comparable in length to when Ladybug was there, and then they just _changed_ like a switch was flipped." She frowned. "Like there was some other change. But I can't figure out _what_."

"Maybe there was," Marinette suggested. "And- I mean, Ladybug's probably still been involved, right? Since normally she's the one giving the Miraculous out and a couple extra ones came into play?"

Alya snapped her fingers. "Yes!" she exclaimed, pointing at Marinette. Then she frowned again, her hand drooping back to her side. "Unless she just gave access to the other Miraculous to Chat Noir or Coccinelle. Probably Chat Noir, because why would she put a temporary holder, even a long-term one, in charge of that? She didn't even let _other_ temporary holders keep their Miraculous for more than one battle in a row."

...Marinette was detecting a bit of jealousy there, but she wasn't going to try to call Alya out on it. After all, even now, Alya wasn't supposed to tell anyone about being Rena Rouge, and sensing _jealousy_ wouldn't make sense unless Marinette already knew (or just _suspected_, but Alya probably wouldn't think of that) about Alya's superhero identity.

"That's what I'm assuming given the evidence, at least," Alya added hastily after a second, glancing back at Marinette as they headed across the courtyard and towards the locker rooms. "Since we never had the same temps show up for two battles in a row."

Marinette smothered a grin. "Right."

"I'd try to get in after a fight and ask questions, but with the short fights- unless I'm nearby to start with or they don't show up right away, I can't get there fast enough," Alya added. "_And_ I kind of doubt that Chat Noir would answer much more about Ladybug's absence. Vacation, burn-out, and illness seem to be the top theories on the Ladyblog, but I bet he wouldn't want to narrow down the field of people who might be Ladybug by confirming anything."

_That_ was the understatement of the century. Her partner wasn't going to do or say anything that would further risk her identity. In fact, she and Chat Noir had discussed the possibility of asking her mom to maybe be Coccinelle again for a week or two later in the year, just to throw people off, just in case anyone was suspicious about the timing of Marinette's broken leg.

If nothing else, random reappearances of Coccinelle might help put Hawkmoth on edge and a bit more cautious about coming out and joining the battle himself, knowing that Ladybug and Coccinelle could swap out without warning. If he and Mayura ventured out, they could end up in a normal battle against Ladybug or Chat Noir, or they could end up on the losing side of an intense 5-minute battle against Coccinelle and Chat Noir.

...really, the more she thought about it, the more appealing the idea to swap out teams on a random basis sounded. It would keep Hawkmoth guessing and hopefully off-balance, which was right where they wanted him.

"D'you think that Chloe's gonna try to throw another party to get back in your good graces, Adrien?" Nino asked from behind them, pulling Marinette out of her musings about how often Coccinelle might come out again after her leg was fully healed. "Since it worked last time?"

Adrien snorted, and both Alya and Marinette abandoned their conversation to step back and join the boys. "Maybe, maybe not. I mean, it didn't exactly end great, did it? Chloe didn't want anyone finding out about her bear, and then the whole school did. And having to be on her best host behavior for several hours clearly wasn't easy, plus her mom is at the Grand Paris now. She might put her foot down about having a bunch of collegèe students running all over the hotel for an entire evening." He shrugged. "And it's not going to impress me now. She's actually got to keep it up if I'm going to want to be friends with her. Or even tolerate her company outside of the classroom, really."

Nino squinted at him for a minute, then blinked. "Who _are_ you, and what have you done with Adrien Agreste?"

"Har, har," Adrien retorted, tugging on Nino's arm before he could walk straight into a wall. He didn't look nearly as confident as before, glancing away uncomfortably before looking back at Nino. "It's just that, well, I've realized that she isn't a very good friend, and I'm not being a great friend to you guys when I don't say anything about her being a bully. And maybe she'll eventually decide that she doesn't care about whether I'm her friend anymore and go back to being a bully, but maybe she won't. Or she won't behave _as_ badly, or- well, even a little reprieve is a good thing, right?" He sighed. "Though stopping altogether would be better."

Marinette bit her tongue. In all honesty, she really, really doubted that Chloe would stop bullying people. She had been doing it for so long that it was habit now, and why _should_ she stop? When she bullied people and ordered everyone around, she got her way. The loss of one friend- one friend who had been spending practically no time with her anyway, since Adrien clearly preferred to hand out with their more pleasant classmates- was probably less of a sacrifice than suddenly no longer getting her way on everything.

"But I guess we'll see," Adrien finished, glancing back towards the classroom once more before resolutely turning away. "We can only hope for the best, really. So. Uh." He glanced around, clearly wanting to change the subject but struggling for a topic. His eyes landed on Marinette's crutches. "What's new? Marinette, how's your leg feeling?"

"It's healing," Marinette said, trying not to make the words sound as robotic as they felt. She shrugged as much as she could with the crutches. "I'm halfway done with the crutches, though. Hopefully, at least. The doctors said that it could be six to eight weeks until the cast could get removed, though they were leaning more towards six." She made a face. "I _hope_ it's only six weeks. I want to be able to go back up to my room. And I'm tired of stairs being difficult."

Alya made a funny noise that was _very_ quickly smothered. Marinette gave her a dark look.

"Stairs aren't _normally_ difficult, I just sometimes go too fast!"

Alya looked like she sorely wanted to say something about that but couldn't. Adrien just nodded, though, completely sympathetic.

It didn't take long for them to drop off notebooks and gather their things to bring home for lunch. Nino and Alya darted off for a lunchtime date in the park, waving over their shoulders as they dashed off in their hurry to not waste any of their lunch hour. Adrien lingered by Marinette's side like he always did, making sure that her crutches didn't get knocked over by the other students rushing through the locker room.

It had flustered her at first, but she had gotten used to Adrien's concern and his chivalry over the past couple weeks and had adapted to it. She had _had_ to, because it was either that or end up in a Marinette puddle by the end of the day because he was always _right there_ and ready to help her at a moment's notice.

With a bit of help from Adrien to get down the stairs in front of the school, it didn't take long for Marinette to reach the (mostly) even footing of the sidewalk. She thanked him with a quick kiss to his cheek, then hopped towards the bakery, dodging the other students as best as she could as everyone scattered for lunch.

Dodging was _much_ easier when she didn't have crutches and a cast and could maneuver more easily, but at least most people tended to give her a wide berth. Marinette suspected that at least a few were worried that she might topple over and whack everyone with her crutches on her way down.

"How was school?" Tikki called as soon as Marinette made her way up to the kitchen and through the door. She was perched on Mrs. Cheng's shoulder as she warmed up lunch for Marinette. "Did it go well?"

"_Someone_ made sure to lean down for his thank-you kiss today!" Sass called out, flitting out of Marinette's purse with an impish snicker. "He's looking forward to it now!"

Mrs. Cheng raised an amused eyebrow at Marinette while she spluttered. "A thank-you kiss?"

"I- uh- well-" Marinette spluttered, blushing bright red. "It's just- he always waits for me at my locker to make sure my crutches don't get knocked over, and then he's been carrying me piggyback down the stairs, and just being really sweet, and, uh..."

Tikki was giggling. "So he gets a kiss?"

"A _cheek_ kiss!" Marinette clarified hastily. This was why she hadn't told her kwami (or Alya) about the cheek kisses, because she _knew_ they would tease her. "As a thank-you! Or a hug, but he seems to like the cheek kisses and he leaned down for it today so that it would be easy for me to reach."

Tikki cheered and zipped over to Marinette. "That's good news! It's progress, right?"

"Or he's decided that it's a normal thing to do between friends," Marinette told her kwami with a little laugh. She had been working hard on not getting her hopes up or reading _too_ far into Adrien's behavior. Doing so would just end with her stumbling over her words. "I doubt that he's seeing it as anything more."

"Yes, but he's clearly comfortable enough with you to encourage you to be in his space," Mrs. Cheng chimed in, stepping over to the table with a plate and cup for Marinette. She smiled at her daughter as she pulled out the chair for her. "And it's always nice if you're getting comfortable enough with each other to share casual touches like that."

Marinette just ducked her head, unable to keep the blush off of her face.

"So other than thanking Adrien for helping you out with getting around school, how was your morning?" Mrs. Cheng asked. She brought over her own plate of food, settling across from Marinette at the table. "Anything interesting?"

"Adrien is standing up against Chloe," Marinette told her mom, remembering the conversation that she had partially overheard from that morning. "He's told her that he's not going to be her friend when she's bullying people." After a moment, she frowned. "He seemed determined about it, but also really uncomfortable, somehow. Nino was teasing him about it, since the last time Adrien told her that, she went right back to being a bully right away, and Adrien just changed topics right away."

Mrs. Cheng smiled, setting her fork down. "Adrien is probably self-conscious about it, and drawing more attention to what he's doing is just making him uncomfortable. I'm sure he'd prefer quiet, private assurances that he's doing the right thing over teasing, no matter how friendly the teasing is."

Marinette frowned at that, puzzled. "Why would he be self-conscious about that, though? I don't understand."

"Because he's probably only recently realized what kinds of effects his friendship with Chloe and his excuses for her are having on his other friends," Mrs. Cheng told her. Her smile turned sad. "And a realization like that- well, it would be a bit uncomfortable that he hadn't realized it before, when it probably seems obvious looking back. So then he wants to make things right, which means going against habit. Habit, and I assume what he's been taught by his parents as well."

Marinette considered that. It made sense, but... "What his parents taught him?"

"Mr. Agreste seems the sort to drill in 'don't rock the boat' as an acceptable life lesson," Mrs. Cheng said, her nose screwed up in distaste. "And not the sort to want to point out what kinds of behaviors are right or wrong, or else he'd run the risk of Adrien knowing how very terrible Mr. Agreste's behavior can be." The nose scrunch intensified. "It's easier to just not bother to teach those lessons. More convenient, too."

"So if he's not been taught, then how would he be noticing now?" Marinette asked. She took a quick bite, then glanced up at her mom again. "Or do you think it's been something that's building up over time?"

"Well, it's impossible to know for sure, but I would assume that maybe a trusted adult mentioned something." Mrs. Cheng got up as the teapot started whistling, pouring herself a cup before returning to the table. "Now that he's going to school, he's coming into contact with more people than he used to. He's meeting more adults than the ones that his father had vetted and has control over. Maybe one of them said something."

Marinette thought about that. It had to have been a teacher, to see how Adrien and Chloe and all of the other students interacted, but that didn't seem right, somehow. "I can't see any of the teachers saying anything, though. Madam Mendeleev doesn't really get involved with student lives, and Ms. Bustier- well, she thinks that Chloe will get better if we're just nice to her all of the time instead of calling her out on being a bully."

"It might not be a teacher," her mom reminded her. She took a sip of tea, then made a slight face. "Ah. Needs honey."

"But how else would they know about what's going on at school?"

"Adrien might have told them," Mrs. Cheng said. She was rummaging through the cupboards now, then smiled as she pulled out her jar of honey. "He may have picked up that something about how he was interacting with others was off, and wanted to figure out _what_ with an outside perspective. It's what Chat Noir has been doing, because- like Adrien- he hasn't had the best adult figures in his life so far."

Marinette bit down the reflexive _mum, __**secret identities!**_whine that rose in her throat in favor of listening. "Oh?"

"They've had poor social training, but neither of them are stupid. They're bound to pick up on discontent and exasperation when they do things like not speak up about bullying." Mrs. Cheng scooped in a half-spoonful of honey into her tea, then rejoined Marinette at the table. "In their eyes, they were responding correctly to the situation, so why is it causing problems? Noticing that something is wrong and reaching out to figure out how to correct it is hard, and actually changing your own behavior... well, it's very hard. I can tell you that Chat Noir was _quite_ worried that people would make a big deal about it."

Marinette could understand that. When she first started really standing up against Chloe, she had been going out of her comfort zone. Chloe was an established bully with plenty of influence with the teachers, and Marinette... well, she protested against Chloe's bullying, of course, but actually pushing back as hard as she did now hadn't come easily. Just staying out of Chloe's way and not getting into fights- and _especially_ getting into fights on her classmates' behalf- was easier. Just trying to comfort her classmates after the fact was easier- well, until Hawkmoth arrived on the scene and could dig his claws in before she could find them and cheer them up.

After that... well, Marinette had gotten an extra confidence boost from being Ladybug and a whole lot more determination from Alya, and she had thrown herself into pushing back against Chloe. It had been hard, and there had definitely been times when she had maybe not acted when she could have because she was too tired.

And she had started from a completely different point than Adrien had. Marinette had never been friends with Chloe, and Adrien had had _years_ of when Chloe was his only friend. Marinette had been on the receiving end of Chloe's bullying for _years_ and knew what it felt like, while Adrien never had. If her mom was right, Adrien had probably been _dissuaded_ from recognizing and calling out bullying, while she hadn't. He was probably going _completely _out of his comfort zone.

Which meant that he needed his friends' support, not teasing.

"So do you think that I should say something about it?" Marinette asked. "Like, encouraging him? Or do you think that would embarrass him too?"

Mrs. Cheng smiled. "Well, it depends. Not everyone is the same, and it would be different if you brought it up yourself versus if Adrien had just faced off against Chloe again or someone else brought it up. I'd say that if he brings it up, that might be a good time to mention your support, too."

Marinette nodded. "Right. That makes sense."

"Good." Mrs. Cheng took another sip of her tea. "So, other than that, how was your morning?"

* * *

Afternoon classes were still ten minutes away when Marinette returned to school, giving her plenty of time to pick her way up the outside stairs (carefully) and across the courtyard. There were still some students walking around- after all, some people just ate in the cafeteria instead of going home- but for the most part, Marinette had a clear path to the locker room.

"Marinette! Wait up!"

Marinette paused, turning as much as she could to see Adrien trotting towards her, a grin on his face. He caught up to her right away, placing one hand on her shoulder to steady her as she turned back around to head forward again. "Hey! Where's the fire?"

"I wanted to catch up, that's all." Adrien grinned over at her. "You're going really fast on those crutches now. I don't think that I ever get that good when I broke my leg."

Marinette blinked. This... well, this was the first time that she had ever heard of Adrien having broken his leg before, too. Which- well, it was hardly as though there hadn't been chances for him to bring it up before, but maybe he had been worried about looking like he was trying to make himself the center of attention or something. "When you broke your leg?"

Adrien winced. "Yeah. I broke my leg when I was nine, during a basketball game against a team of older kids. It got a bit rough, and I ended up getting tripped and going flying." He paused, stepping ahead of her to hold the locker room door open for her to come through. He sent a glare at another student when they ducked through the door he had just opened, apparently oblivious to Marinette's crutches. "It was a pretty serious break, too. And I remember how much it sucked to have to deal with a broken leg. One of the things I hated most was getting my pants on and off every day. Like, even with shorts, it was just so hard to get them over the cast. So I may have begged my parents to just let me wear a skirt instead."

Marinette couldn't help but giggle. "Oh, man, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that. I bet your father wasn't thrilled with the idea."

"Not at all," Adrien agreed. "Even though I pointed out that the Scottish have kilts- I thought that was a very compelling argument, actually- and then the ancient Greeks and Romans had tunics. And it wasn't like I was going out in public anyway. But Father wouldn't hear of it." His grin widened. "He did eventually design several pairs of pants that had a zipper running all the way down the side, so that I didn't have to wrestle them over the cast. That was only after I started making and wearing bedsheet togas in protest, though."

Marinette had to stop walking so that she wouldn't fall over while laughing, leaning heavily on her crutches as she tried to imagine Mr. Agreste's face. He was so incredibly straight-laced that she had to imagine that his reaction had probably been either pretty funny or borderline frightening. She herself was glad that it was warm enough outside that dresses and skirts were an entirely practical choice, though she couldn't deny that she was also looking forward to being able to go back to her normal outfits as well.

But pants- capris, maybe?- with a zipper up the side? That was an idea.

...except that her sewing machine was only really accessible via use of the Horse Miraculous, unless she wanted to go up the stairs on her butt, and she was trying not to abuse the Miraculous powers for her own personal benefit. And maybe her mom had offered to bring the sewing machine down, but then she had to think about what materials she would need, and there were just so many components to think about, and she would need to start with a base pattern, which would mean going out to search for one.

_Ugh._ Fine. She would stick to skirts for now.

"Nino thought that it was a bit weird when I mentioned it," Adrien commented after a moment, neatly catching Marinette's crutch after it slipped out from under her arm because she was laughing so hard. An uncertain look flashing across his face for a moment. "Because 'guys don't wear skirts' or something like that. But I thought you might find it amusing."

"Nino's jealous that he can't pull off a skirt and you can," Marinette said right away, wanting to wipe that insecurity off of Adrien's face. She could _totally _see Nino being weirded out by the idea of wearing a skirt, but _he_ hadn't ever had a broken leg. He didn't know how inconvenient it was to get dressed with a cast in the way.

And for Adrien, who had all of his clothes closely fitted to give off an ultra-tailored look, it would be _super_ inconvenient.

Adrien laughed properly at that, taking Marinette's backpack so that she could open her locker. "Most of it is in the attitude, I think. If he's uncomfortable, it'll show. If you're fine with it, things tend to look normal."

Marinette nodded. She could understand that. After all, it applied to models normally, too. Sometimes it really _was_ all about how something was presented. "I wish I could have seen that. It sounds like it would have been cute."

Adrien perked up. "Would- would you want to come over sometime and see the photos I have, maybe? Mom took a bunch, since it took Father a couple days to make zip-side shorts that actually worked."

"And you wore a toga the entire time?" Marinette asked. Without waiting for an answer, she grinned. "I'd _love_ to come over. Just let me know when it would be a good time."

Adrien lit up. "Great! I'll definitely ask Nathalie when you can come over. I'll have to frame it as a study session, probably," he added. "Just in case Father is still being a stick in the mud about the whole thing and doesn't want me to tell anyone about it. So we'll have to do some studying, too, to make it realistic. And it might not be right away, either, since I don't know how full my schedule will be."

"Oh, no, how terrible," Marinette deadpanned, smiling wider when Adrien snickered. He had been _super_ self-conscious about his father's habit of having Nathalie or the Gorilla check in on him and his friends when they were over there to study at first, so it was good to see that he wasn't so worried about how they would react anymore. Adrien knew that they weren't going to judge him for his father's over-supervision. "Studying? How will I survive?"

As Adrien laughed harder, Marinette could only smile over at him fondly. After how uncomfortable Adrien had clearly been that morning, it was good to see him relaxed and laughing again. Maybe it wouldn't last long- after all, once Chloe returned from lunch, it was very likely that she would make another attempt at getting Adrien swayed back to her side- but for now, Marinette would just enjoy their time together.


	7. Chapter 7

Three and a half weeks into her time on crutches, an akuma attack struck when Marinette was halfway across Paris, in the middle of a crowd and with nowhere she could go to transform and then Portal her way back to her bedroom.

She shouldn't have accepted Alya's invitation to go out with her and the other girls for ice cream, but Marinette had just been so _tired_ of not being able to go on outings because her crutches made things difficult. Besides, her physical therapist had encouraged the exercise, because otherwise she was going to lose a _lot_ of muscle tone. So Marinette went, and- well, things had gone _relatively_ well. They couldn't walk and eat their ice cream like usual, but it was fun to get to hang out with her friends outside of school.

And then the akuma showed up, and how was Marinette supposed to safely navigate the fleeing crowds and the akuma's zapping power on _crutches?_ It was impossible, there were no stores nearby that weren't already packed with people, and if she didn't get injured in the stampede- well, then she'd end up as an akuma's zombie, wouldn't she?

Marinette didn't want that to happen. It didn't sound fun, obviously, and also- well, as much as she trusted her mom and Chat Noir, Marinette liked being in control. She liked being involved with the attack and the plan. Part of it was just that she was used to it, as Ladybug, but part...

Well, no one _really_ liked feeling like they were at the mercy of an akuma attack, did they? There had been people who had left Paris and good jobs because they hated it so much.

Regardless of how pointless it was, Marinette propelled herself as fast as she could on her crutches. There was always the off chance that there would be a spot where she could duck in and transform, even if it wasn't likely. Her breath was coming in pants as she pushed herself along, and Marinette gritted her teeth as she got jostled by a couple fleeing people. One particularly hard hit sent her stumbling, cringing as weight landed on her broken leg. With a cry, Marinette fell to the pavement. Behind her, she could hear the akuma's cackling growing closer.

There was no way out now. No way, no way-

And suddenly, Marinette found herself in the air.

"Gotcha, Princess," Chat Noir said cheerfully, leaping over another building. "Unfortunately I couldn't grab your crutches, but with any luck, maybe the Cure will get them back to you. If not, this cat can play fetch."

"Are you sure you're not part-dog?" Marinette teased, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Chat Noir sent her a frankly offended look before grinning.

"You know that some cats fetch, right? Maybe I'm just that kind."

"Ha ha," Marinette deadpanned, then had to resist the urge to hold on tighter during a slightly harder landing. As much as she hated to admit it- she was a _superhero_, darn it, and even if she wasn't transformed, she _had_ been carried like this before- having one leg not at 100% made her feel a _lot_ less secure. "Thanks for the save, by the way. I've been lucky enough before to not be out in public when akumas hit."

"It probably helps that there's been fewer attacks, huh?" Chat Noir adjusted his path suddenly, and Marinette looked away from him and out across the rooftops. Several blocks away, she could see Coccinelle approaching. "This'll just take a minute. I want to check in with Coccinelle so that she knows that I'll be running a few minutes late."

Marinette could only nod before Chat Noir was off again, racing across the rooftops. Coccinelle had spotted him coming and paused on a rooftop, watching curiously as they approached. As soon as she recognized Marinette in Chat Noir's arms, her eyebrows crawled into her hairline.

"I'm bringing Marinette back home," Chat Noir told Coccinelle, lifting Marinette slightly as if to show her off. "She was in the crowds near the akuma, and- well, they weren't being very careful if they just _knocked over_ someone on crutches. I just want to make sure that she's safe before I go out."

"Good idea," Coccinelle agreed after a pause. "I'll- well, I might drop into an alleyway for a few minutes and try to get an eye on the situation like Vipera does, with tapping into security cameras. She's not online yet, so it might help to get a jumpstart on the situation."

Chat Noir tensed up, frowning. "I hope she's okay. We have a mind-control akuma on our hands this time, and if she's been hit..."

"I have a feeling that she's fine." Coccinelle's smile got a little wider. "Now, we should probably hurry, dear."

"Right!" Chat Noir straightened, making Marinette yelp as she was jostled. "Sorry, sorry- okay, I'll be right back! Hold on, Marinette!"

With that, they were off again. It took no time at all to reach Marinette's balcony, but much to her surprise, Chat Noir didn't just put her down there. Instead, he carried her inside, all the way down to the kitchen, before settling her down on the couch carefully.

"Stay safe," Chat Noir instructed sternly, glancing around as if to make sure that nothing was going to jump at her from behind the cupboards before patting her shoulder and stepping back. "I'll stop by later to make sure that you get your crutches back, okay?"

Marinette nodded, and Chat Noir was off like a shot.

"Helpful boy," Sass commented, floating out of Marinette's purse at last. "It's convenient that he grabbed you! There was no way that you would have dodged the akuma otherwise."

"Yeah," Marinette agreed. Her heart was _still_ racing because of that. She took a deep breath- being all pumped up on adrenaline and buzzy wasn't going to work very well with the Snake- and let it out slowly, then nodded to herself. "Okay. Sass, transform me!"

* * *

"I almost had a heart attack when I saw that the akuma was over where I knew you and the girls were getting ice cream," Mrs. Cheng told Marinette once the battle had finished and she had returned to the house. "I mean, I'm sure that Chat Noir and I could have managed, but it's just that we've gotten so used to you helping out and being our failsafe that the prospect of having to go without just felt unsafe." She sent a sly smile in Marinette's direction. "That was nice of Chat Noir to bring you home, though, wasn't it? He really went out of his way for it."

Marinette tried (and failed, probably) not to turn red at the teasing hint in her mom's voice. "I was really glad when he showed up. Someone had knocked me over when they were running away from the akuma. I was a bit worried that I would get trampled, and I bet he was, too. That's why he grabbed me."

Mrs. Cheng was smiling. "And carried you across the city... and to our house... and down to the living room..."

Marinette didn't have an answer for that. Usually when she and Chat Noir saved civilians- which wasn't _regularly_, by now they figured that most people knew to get out of the way on their own or knew the risks of staying close by and besides, they had to focus on the akuma and trying to save _everyone_ individually was impractical- it was because the person in question was getting targeted specifically and they didn't usually go further than they needed to. Her mom was right- going to such measures to help what appeared to be a random civilian was a little odd.

But she was on _crutches_, and- well, she wasn't exactly random, was she? Even if she ignored the whole _Ladybug _and _Guardian_ thing, Marinette had interacted with Chat Noir before. She had helped out with Evillustrator, and then there was the whole brunch fiasco. He had saved her when her grandma turned into Befana. He knew her on a more personal level, and that combined with seeing her struggling on her crutches (which _hadn't_ been returned by the Miraculous Cure, unfortunately) had probably been enough to warrant the Gold Star treatment.

"That close call didn't seem to throw you off at all, though," Mrs. Cheng commented after a minute. She poured herself a cup of tea, giving it a gentle swirl before trying a sip. "I was worried that it might, but that was a _very_ smooth fight. It helped that there was just an akuma, of course, and not the full supervillain force, but it still went quite well. I think Chat Noir is enjoying being able to hang around a little at the end of the attacks." She sent a smile Marinette's way. "Not that he won't enjoy having you back _more_, of course. He keeps asking how much longer you're going to be on crutches and then pouting when the answer isn't _oh, she'll be back tomorrow_."

Marinette had to smile at that. That sounded very much like Chat Noir.

"Sometime he acts like it's been a year since he had seen or heard from you last," her mom added with a small laugh. "Instead of just under a month since he's seen you in person. The way he carries on sometime, you would think that it's been absolutely _forever_."

"It _feels_ like forever!" Marinette complained, slumping in her seat. "I knew when I got the cast put on that it would be a while before I could do things normally again, but this is _ridiculous_. I just want to get back out and running around again."

"You have to be patient, or you could run the risk of re-injuring yourself," Mrs. Cheng reminded her. She smiled. "Chat Noir and I are getting along fine. And I'll even have him turned into a perfect gentleman by the time you're returned."

Marinette's frown deepened and she straightened abruptly, giving her mom a dismayed look. "Wait, what do you mean, turning him into a gentleman? Chat Noir is great already! I don't need him to be opening doors for me, or carrying my things, or- or-"

"No- oh, that came out wrong," Mrs. Cheng exclaimed. "And maybe _gentleman_ is the wrong thing to call it. It comes with behavior implications, I suppose. It's just- well, it's just like when you were younger and acted up sometimes, and I would talk to you about it. Or about any concerns I had, really, it didn't have to be _just_ misbehaving."

Marinette sighed and drooped again. "Oh. You're _mothering_ him."

"You say that like it's a bad thing!" Mrs. Cheng protested. "Or like he doesn't like it. He appreciates it, he really does."

Marinette hummed, not entirely convinced. Chat Noir was a teenage boy, and what teenage boy _appreciated _being told off or _talked to_ about the stuff they were doing by someone who wasn't even their parent? None of them, probably. It was one thing to give him advice when he asked for it, but _parental scolding_ was completely different.

If that was what was going on, that was. Though Marinette _really_ couldn't think of what her mom could possibly be _scolding_ Chat Noir about. Their battles were short and focused all the time now- with Vipera giving out all of the instructions, battle time banter had been cut down to a minimum so that they didn't get distracted- and there really wasn't anything that could go _that_ wrong during their twice-a-week patrols.

Maybe- maybe it was all Chat Noir asking questions and her mom just wasn't communicating that very well?

"I promise, I'm not trying to change who he is at heart," Mrs. Cheng promised. "I'm not trying to make him act in a really specific way or anything. I wouldn't do that."

Marinette nodded at last, deciding to take her mom at her word, at least for now. Maybe she could call up Chat Noir some other time as Vipera and make sure that Coccinelle wasn't stepping over any lines, but that could wait for a bit.

On the counter, her mom's phone buzzed with a message. Mrs. Cheng picked it up, then made a slight face. "Ah, Tom wants some help with prepping dough for tomorrow. Will you be all right up here?" She glanced over at Marinette, her frown deepening when she noticed the lack of crutches. "Except you don't have your crutches- did they get left near the akuma site? I don't want you to be stranded in one place because you can't get around." Mrs. Cheng glanced from her phone to the clock to Marinette, concern growing on her face. "I _want_ to go get them now, but..."

"Chat Noir said that he would bring my crutches back after the battle," Marinette assured her hastily. "If the Cure didn't bring them back, that is. So I bet that he's recharging and then he'll bring them over. I'll be fine."

"And if Marinette wants to move, she can just transform," Sass piped up from where he was munching on a small snack on the table. "I can add a pair of crutches to the transformation and she can just use those! We'd just have to be careful to not still be transformed when Chat Noir comes over."

Mrs. Cheng laughed at that, then covered her mouth. "Oh, I shouldn't find that funny, because I know that you've said that you aren't ready to do a reveal yet, but I was just imagining the look on Chat Noir's face if he came over with Marinette's crutches, only to find Vipera in our living room and figure out that he had, by complete chance, saved Ladybug from the akuma. You'd be able to knock him over with a feather, I just know it."

Marinette grinned at the mental image. As much as they _weren't_ ready for a reveal- yeah, it would be a pretty funny reaction. "I think I'll leave the transformation option for a last resort, if I need to use the bathroom or something. Otherwise, I can just wait for Chat Noir to come. Unless something comes up, I doubt that he'll take long."

"If you're sure." Mrs. Cheng glanced around, making sure that she hadn't forgotten anything, and then with one last smile, headed back down to the bakery. Marinette settled herself on the couch, picking up her phone as she did. It was flashing with messages, and she opened them to find Alya and her other friends being _super_ worried about where she had gone. She shot back a quick message assuring them that she was safe and Chat Noir had brought her home so that she would be out of harm's way- hopefully they wouldn't read into that and decide that Chat Noir had a crush on her or something ridiculous like that- and then flipped through her phone some more, idly browsing the Ladyblog and the superheroes' tag online. Once again, people were praising Coccinelle and Chat Noir for the short fight, gushing over their teamwork. Marinette wrinkled her nose when she spotted a couple comments about how 'clearly Coccinelle and Chat Noir make a better team', but she wasn't going to let it bother her, not anymore.

It was only going to be a couple weeks more before they made an announcement that would shed a little- but hopefully not _too_ much- light on how much Ladybug was helping behind the scenes. They would see what the people dissing the normal superhero partnership thought about it then.

Only a minute later, there was a soft _thump_ from upstairs. Marinette put her phone away, glancing upwards, and Sass quickly vanished under the counter before the trapdoor opened and Chat Noir appeared. He had her crutches tucked neatly under one arm as he trotted down the stairs and directly to her.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting long," Chat Noir told her, presenting her crutches grandly before leaning them up against the side of the couch, well within her reach. "And that even if the Cure didn't bring your crutches back, it at least dealt with whatever bruising you might have gotten from getting knocked over."

"It did," Marinette assured him hastily. "It was hurting, but the Cure came by and fixed me right back up. Or back to where I _had_ been, at least."

"Yeah, it's unfortunate that it can't heal your leg entirely. At least I'm assuming it can't, at least." Chat Noir stepped closer, seeming to hesitate for a moment before taking a seat on the couch next to her. "Is there anything else I can do to help? I can do something while I'm here, if you need. If there's anything from your room- I'm assuming that you're sleeping somewhere else? It looked a bit more unused that I'm used to."

Marinette couldn't help but smile. This was classic Chat Noir, always helpful. Though- well, that _than I'm used to_ was a bit odd, wasn't it? He had only been in her room a couple times, and mostly when there were akumas to focus on. _Noticing_ that it wasn't getting used was normal enough- after all, all of her bedding was gone- but surely he hadn't actually remembered her room well enough from those few times to be _used_ to what it looked like. "That's sweet of you to offer, but I think I'm good. And yeah, my parents have a guest room that I'm using, so that I wouldn't have to deal with two more flights of stairs."

"That's nice that you have that option," Chat Noir commented. "Crutches and stairs- yeah, it's not the best combination, is it?"

"Oh, not at _all_." Marinette made a face. She had been trying to learn how to go up stairs on her crutches- short flights only, and only when she didn't have another option- but it was _hard_. There were just too many moving parts, and too many things that could snag on the stairs and too many shifts in balance to keep track of. "I'm lucky that we got to have stair lifts put in the house. If I had to be restricted to just one level unless someone else was around to move me up and down the stairs, or if I had to just, like, sit on the stairs to go up or down..."

It wouldn't be any fun at all, and the whole six weeks on crutches would drag out even more than it already was. And considering that she still had two and a half weeks to go...

Well, it really _would_ feel like eternity then. She would probably end up abusing the Horse's powers just a little bit, just to be able to _not_ have to always be on the same floor.

"Ooh, yeah, having everything on one floor would be a _lot_ better," Chat Noir agreed. "Which your place...does not. At all."

_That_ was an understatement.

"Anyway, I guess if you're all set... I should probably go." Chat Noir glanced around, then got up. "See you around?"

Marinette glanced up at him. Chat Noir was acting twitchy, like he did on evenings when rain threatened to cancel their patrols but he _really_ didn't want to go home. She had never asked why, but it was easy enough to guess that he was probably pretty ignored and lonely. She was ahead on her schoolwork, so it wasn't like there was anything that she _needed_ to be doing right now. "Actually... would you like to play a couple rounds of Mecha Strike before you go?"

The way Chat Noir perked up was all the answer she needed.

* * *

It ended up being _way_ more than 'a couple rounds' before Chat Noir finally noticed the time and took off, hastily thanking Marinette for the game before he fled out the kitchen balcony. Marinette giggled as she watched him go, frantically pumping his arms and legs as though _that_ was going to help him go any faster.

"I should check and see if Mama and Papa need any help," Marinette told Sass once Chat Noir had jumped out of view. She pushed herself up, reaching for her crutches. "They don't normally take this long to do next-day dough prep. I wonder if something broke?"

"It would be nice to be able to move around a little," Sass agreed, flying over to perch on Marinette's shoulder. "I know you didn't mean to, but you've been sitting a lot today. It's probably a good idea to get up."

"I've not been sitting any more than I normally would on a school day!" Marinette protested, but she could see where Sass was making a point. She had been sitting pretty much since Chat Noir snatched her off of the ground, _hours_ earlier, and at school she was at least getting up between classes and moving around for a few minutes.

It didn't take long for Marinette to hop her way over to her chair lift and start downstairs. Her parents were nowhere to be seen in the front of the bakery- which made sense, since it was closed for the day and most of their equipment was in back anyway- so Marinette headed for the main kitchens instead, starting to push open the kitchen door and then pausing when she heard her name mentioned.

"- so I just want to make sure that Chat Noir knows how to pick up on it and figure out what he can do."

"Has he responded well to it?" Mr. Dupain asked over the clatter of dishes dropping into the sink. "Can you tell?"

"Of course he has, he only wants to be able to help her. And he hadn't realized how much different the levels of stress are, literally _all the time_. He's picked up when it's gotten _really_ bad, of course, but not realized that it's a constant thing." Mrs. Cheng paused, and Marinette could hear the sound of dough being kneaded against the table. "So I've been working with him on patrols to pick up on more subtle signs of stress and to be able to recognize when it's a good time to joke around and when it would just be an unwelcome distraction, and how to differentiate playful flirting and pushing boundaries. He's been lovely about it. He hadn't realized- it's poor teaching from his parents rearing its head up again."

"I mean, it's a best case scenario, isn't it?" Mr. Dupain turned on the dishwasher, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the rush of water. "He just didn't realize, instead of being at least partially aware and not bothering to adjust what he was doing."

"Exactly. He's a sweet boy, and while it may take a little for him to really learn how to recognize the more hidden signs of stress, he's willing to learn." There was a smile in Mrs. Cheng's voice. "And he's been asking for ideas on how to help out to keep stress from becoming an issue and coming up with his own ideas to run by me. We've definitely talked about how he can help out more, and brainstormed ways for him to take on a bit more responsibility, both during battles and outside of them. It's- well, it's a little difficult to start implementing right away, of course, since Vipera changes battles so much, but we can talk over scenarios during patrols."

"The only problem with that, of course, is that he's not getting in practice with his changed behavior, so it might be _really_ easy for him to fall back into old habits once Ladybug returns," Mr. Dupain commented. There was the hum of another machine now, and Marinette recognized it as the dough roller. They were working on croissants now, probably, which meant that they were _really_ behind schedule. "But then he should hopefully just need a reminder or two to realize when he's slipped. The problem, I think, would just be the question of _how_ to remind him, since he can't know who we are." A pause. "Or who _you_ are, more specifically. Since he's only really met me the once."

"I'm sure I could figure something out. And- Tom, the roller is freezing up again. I really think we need to call for someone to come in and look at it first thing tomorrow morning, we can't be babysitting it all the time to get it to work."

"Of course! And- hmm. Can you unplug the machine? I'll just finish up this batch by hand."

Marinette carefully closed the door silently as the topic of conversation shifted back to regular bakery business, then pivoted herself around to head back upstairs. She couldn't exactly be of any help with the croissants- Marinette didn't know enough about the machines to be able to pick out any problems and fix them, and actually rolling out the dough took a _lot_ of arm strength and weight. Her parents probably didn't want her eavesdropping anyway, and she could maybe start on some dinner prep while they wrestled the last of the Sunday evening preparations together.

"So _that's_ what your mom meant when she was talking about making Chat Noir a gentleman," Sass commented as Marinette's chair lift hummed back up the stairs again. "That's not bad, is it? She's working to help improve your teamwork."

Marinette nodded, ducking her head to hide her smile. "Yeah. It's really nice."

"And it's helping you two move closer to being able to do a reveal!" Tikki piped up, appearing in front of Marinette and making her jump enough that she very nearly toppled out of the lift. "Which is _very_ good!"

"You- you can't just _pop out of nowhere_ like that, Tikki!" Marinette exclaimed, one hand pressed to her chest and the other clutching the lift's armrest tight enough that her knuckles turned white. "You scared me!"

Tikki giggled. "Sorry! But I sensed you listening in, and I wanted to come check in on you and make sure that you weren't seeing your mom as interfering when she's really helping."

"I _know_ she's helping, it's really nice that she's talking to him about that stuff- _wait!_" Marinette cut herself off, the other part of what Tikki had said sinking in. She frowned. "I thought that we couldn't _do_ a reveal unless something went wrong or Hawkmoth got defeated, Tikki! It's what you've drilled into my head from the start. And what- what about the consequences? Last time Chat Noir knew who I was- well, Chat Blanc happened, didn't it?"

"There are consequences if you reveal too soon and aren't ready for it," Tikki corrected her, floating down to land on her lap. "And while there are dangers no matter what when more people know your identity... well, if you know each other outside of the mask, then you can support each other all the time. You can know where the other person is when an akuma attacks. You can talk about Guardian information in a place that _isn't_ open rooftops. But reveals _do_ change things, and that's why we always start off recommending that you keep your identity secret!"

"Change things how-" Marinette started, and then paused, frowning. "Actually, I think I know what you mean. It could throw off the dynamic, and- well, we don't exactly have the time or the wriggle room to _fix_ our dynamic if we really screw it up, not with Hawkmoth hovering around the corner all the time."

Tikki nodded proudly. "Exactly! You've always known each other as superheroes, and that shapes your perception, even if you _know_ that under that mask, there's a normal civilian like you. But once the masks come off and you get to know each other as civilians- well, depending on if you know them and how well, your perception of what they're able to do might change. Even though you _know_ better! But if you two are ready for a reveal- well, the concerns don't vanish, but they do go down a bit. Like, instead of taking _twenty_ fights to get your perceptions back to pretty much where they had been, it'll just take two, and it shouldn't start out as bad."

"So even though we haven't been seeing each other in person, we're getting closer?" Marinette checked. "That- I mean, I understand _how_ that's happening, it just seems counterintuitive."

Tikki nodded. "I'm not surprised! But sometimes you need to shake up the status quo for maturation to really get going again, and this whole situation- no matter how unfortunate it's been- has forced both of you out of your comfort zones. You've had to adjust to different roles within your team, and now you have another long-term team member, one who is bringing different life experience to your team. Having your parents knowing about you means that you can go to them for advice, instead of muddling through strictly on your own. Not that muddling is bad!" Tikki added hastily. "It's a good thing, to a point. Being able to be independent and solve your own problems is great, but it's also nice to talk to others and see how they might have approached it. Sometimes it turns out that your own approach was better, for whatever reason- maybe because you know your relationship with Chat Noir better, or there were other factors that your parents don't know about but you do, whether consciously or not- but sometimes talking it over can give you more ideas for in the future."

"Right," Marinette said at once. _That_ was easy enough to understand, actually. She had done something similar before, going through comments on the Ladyblog when she had the time and reading over what some of the commenters thought that she and Chat Noir should have done instead to see if there was anything that she hadn't thought of any might be able to incorporate in the future. Most were fairly useless as far as suggestions went, or completely impractical, but occasionally there was a useful comment.

(Unsurprisingly enough, those kinds of comments were usually framed less as 'they should have done thing x' and more as 'I wonder if thing x would have worked?' instead.)

"But that applies for both battle things _and_ personal things," Tikki added. "And then- well, your relationship can grow that way. And you two will have to do most of the work. But I think that this is going to help a lot! Most teenaged holders take _years_ to really grow to fit together seamlessly enough that they would be able to do a reveal in these conditions."

"Tikki!" Mrs. Cheng called up the stairs. "Would you mind flying into the machine for a moment? Tom thinks he's found the jam, we just can't see for sure."

"Coming!" Tikki called, then turned back to Marinette. "Don't be worried about the reveal, Marinette, or try to force yourself into growth early. I just wanted to let you know about it with plenty of time so that you have some time to adjust to the idea before it become reality."

With that, she zipped off. Marinette watched her go for a moment, then pushed herself to her feet to head to the next leg of the lift.

She hadn't really given much thought to a reveal with her partner, ever since she had revealed to her parents. The emergency had been dealt with, and so it meant that things could continue as usual with her relationship with her partner- or as close to usual as they could get until she could return to the battlefield, at least. They had always planned on doing a reveal if they could after Hawkmoth had been dealt with, but that- well, it seemed like a _years away_ sort of thing. Not because they thought that they _couldn't_ beat him now, just...

Well, sometimes it felt like they were running in place, struggling to keep up with the new things that Hawkmoth threw at them and the losses of their allies.

But now Tikki was saying that it might happen sooner. That they might _not_ have to wait. That sometime in the not-so-distant future, she and Chat Noir might be able to know each other outside of the masks, and _not_ have it have the terrible repercussions that she so feared. That it could help her get more support- and help her support Chat Noir- instead.

As far as silver linings for bad situations went... well, that was pretty good.

* * *

_a/n: Chapter update not courtesy of my boss's cat, who I am watching over the weekend and who thinks that I should spend all of his waking hours either petting him or getting him food. Lovely cat, just very demanding._

_As always, comments make my day!_


	8. Chapter 8

Marinette had gotten as far as the gate in front of the Agreste mansion when she realized that, like her house, Adrien's place had stairs. Unlike the Dupain-Cheng household, the mansion didn't have any sort of lifts on the stairs, or an elevator like the school.

She hadn't remembered to consider that. Really, she _should_ have, and then she should have talked to Adrien about it before school let out for the day to figure out what he wanted her to do.

Worrying her lip, Marinette step-hopped forward through the gates as they swung open. She could _probably_ figure out the steps- she _had_ been working on it during her physical therapy, it was just that normally she had people behind her to steady her- or just scoot herself up the stairs on her rear, but neither seemed like particularly good ideas. The first sounded dangerous, and the second-

Well, Mr. Agreste was all about appearances, and _scooting up the stairs on her butt_ wasn't exactly a good appearance. And after it had taken so long for Adrien to get permission to have Marinette over in the first place, she didn't want to do anything that would get her immediately booted out.

With a deep breath, Marinette readied herself to go up the steps. She had only just gotten herself in position to start hopping her way up, though, when two large hands grabbed her shoulders and _lifted_. Before Marinette could figure out what was going on, she was being carried up the front steps and through the front door as it smoothly swung open. The carrier- it _had_ to be the Gorilla, based both on the size of the hands and the height at which she was being unceremoniously carried- continued forward at an unchanging pace, all the way up the set of stairs in the entryway and right to the door of Adrien's room, where they came to an abrupt halt.

Marinette didn't doubt that if Adrien hadn't been standing in front of his door, cringing as he took in the sight of her getting hauled in by her shoulders, that the Gorilla would have continued straight into his room without missing a beat.

And then Marinette found herself scrambling to get her feet under herself as the Gorilla set her back down, just as abruptly as he had picked her up. He lingered long enough to make sure that she wouldn't fall over, then headed off without a word.

"I am so, _so_ sorry," Adrien murmured as he opened the door to his room, standing back to give her plenty of room to get by. "I mentioned that you might have trouble getting up the stairs, so- well, I was _trying_ to ask about if we have any elevators or ground-level entrances, honestly, but. Uh. He just decided to do _that, _apparently."

Marinette giggled, unable to help finding it funny now that she wasn't being taken off guard and manhandled up the stairs. "He decided to interpret that as him needing to be a human elevator, apparently. I would have preferred a heads-up, sure, but I know he was just trying to help."

"I think he forgot that even if I'm used to him picking me up and moving me around without warning, not everyone is," Adrien said with a sigh. He stepped around Marinette, pulling out a chair for her so that she could sit down. "Really, I'm sorry about that. We can find some other way for you to get back down the stairs later on."

"It's fine," Marinette insisted. She sat down, scooting up to Adrien's desk. "So, what are we doing first- photos or schoolwork?"

"We should probably at least get out our homework," Adrien admitted. "And get started on it. That way, if Nathalie sticks her head in, we can claim that we've been working on it the whole time. Or that we're just taking a quick break from studying."

Somehow, Marinette doubted that Nathalie would fall for that. Whether or not she would let it slide, though, was another matter. Sometimes it seemed like she was willing to help and cover for Adrien, while other times she ratted him out and interfered with Adrien's attempts to get together with his friends. Which way she went seemed to depend on the day.

How Adrien put up with that, Marinette just didn't know. Having to be around adults who blew hot or cold at random had to be _super_ hard.

It didn't take long for them to set up their things, and sure enough, Marinette heard the quiet _click_ of a door as they started work, giving away that someone- Nathalie, probably- had just poked her head in to make sure that they were actually working. Adrien glanced over at the door at the same time, and Marinette knew that he must have heard it as well.

And she had thought that _her_ parents were nosy. At least _they_ wouldn't care if they were actually doing homework or not.

"We should _definitely_ try to study together more often," Adrien said appreciatively as they worked their way through their science and math homework. "It goes _really_ fast with both of us. If I had to work through these problems on my own, I think it would probably take twice as long."

Marinette smiled and nodded. She had been about to say the same, honestly. When she and Adrien hit a snag with a concept that they weren't quite getting, they would either both toss ideas back and forth until they had figured out what they were messing up, or they would dive into their books and onto the computer to find something that explained the concept better if they really had no idea where to start. They hadn't really worked together that much before, so the ease with which they clicked and worked as a team was- well, a little surprising.

Surprising, but definitely not a bad thing. If they were really productive, then hopefully Nathalie would let them hang out together more often, without so much hassle.

"Okay, we have probably fifteen minutes before Nathalie checks in again," Adrien murmured seconds after they heard the third _click_ of their study session. He paused, listening closely, then pushed his chair across the floor to grab a small photo album that had been tucked alongside his desk. "So my mom made this photo album. It's a secret from my father, technically. It's all of the photos that he hates, for whatever reason, but my mom thought were cute or funny."

Marinette's eyes got wide. That- that sounded like the kind of this that Mr. Agreste would probably destroy, if he found out that the album existed. "And it's not been- well, destroyed or anything?"

"No, I keep it hidden. And I have digital copies, in case anything ever happens to it. I don't think my dad _would_ mess with it, though. My mom thought it was cute, and he-" Adrien paused, swallowing. "I don't want to think that he would destroy anything that she liked so much. But it's better safe than sorry with him, honestly." He took a moment, then scooted back to Marinette's side. "There's- uh, okay, there's a lot of baby photos in here, honestly. Just ignore that. But further along..." He flipped through the pages, and Marinette had to restrain herself from trying to catch a peek of what Baby Adrien (or Toddler Adrien) had looked like. If he wanted her to know, then he wouldn't be flipping through so fast. "Aha! Here's the toga."

Marinette took one look and had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from bursting out with laughter. "Oh my _god_. That- how did you not trip over that?"

"Okay, the first iteration left something to be desired," Adrien admitted. "To be fair, I was nine, and I had no idea how togas were meant to work. And the sheets on my bed- well, I have a big bed. And I wasn't a particularly big nine-year-old."

"The _first_ iteration?" Marinette asked, puzzled. She frowned. "I thought your father would have put a stop to it."

"He tried, but it wasn't like I was just dressing up for fun," Adrien told her. "My mom pointed out that I had a reason for it, and then she got me a smaller bedsheet and looked up how to tie a toga. And she had access to safety pins and everything, so..."

He turned the page, and- oh, that wasn't _fair_. How did Adrien look so _good_ while wearing- well, just a bedsheet with a belt around it?

"If Father had taken any longer to make cast-friendly pants, my mom and I were planning on ordering some kilts in my size," Adrien told Marinette. "Not for wearing _out_, necessarily, but to bug Father a bit." He laughed. "I kind of regret that I didn't get to do that, actually. I would have loved trying on a kilt."

...well, now Marinette wanted to make him one. It would be an interesting experience, and maybe she would learn some skills that she hadn't really dealt with before. But that also ran a very real risk of ticking Gabriel Agreste off, and considering that she had already ticked Audrey Bourgeois off this year...

Maybe that was a project for another time. Or at the very least, a project that could not be shown off beyond the confines of her house.

"Maybe Father got mad, but when Mom was here and made sure that he wasn't taking it out on me, it was fun," Adrien told her. "He might huff and puff but there wouldn't be any consequences."

_Unlike there would be now _went unsaid. Marinette had to wince on his behalf, because _that_ had to be an unpleasant change to get used to.

"Anyway, there were a couple days of togas, and then I had my new cast-friendly pants to wear," Adrien finished, flipping the page. It was another page of him posing in different togas, each made up slightly differently. There were different belts, then a couple brooches to hold the toga together, then a deep red one that was _clearly_ not meant to be worn out, considering that the back dragged out like a royal cape. "But it was fun while it lasted, and it was probably- no, _definitely_\- the best part of having a broken leg."

"There's not much good about being on crutches," Marinette agreed. "I mean, Lila's gone, so _that's_ good. But if I could have just, like, sprained my ankle and gotten a few bruises instead but gotten the same results, that would have been _so_ much better."

Adrien grinned, clearly about to respond, but a noise near the door had them scrambling to hide the photo album and turn back to their books before they could be caught. When they heard the telltale _click_ a minute later, they exchanged conspiratorial glances. Adrien's was tinged with an impish smile, and Marinette was sure that she was no better.

Being around Adrien like this was _fun_. Marinette had gotten tastes of it before, of course- it was hardly as though she and Adrien never hung out together by themselves- but it had never quite been this side of him, impish and rule-bending and all poorly-concealed grins and twinkling eyes and muffled laughter.

And Marinette wanted to see it _more_. It was easy to be relaxed around Adrien when he was like this. They could joke around and just hang out and not be _thinking_ too much.

Or maybe she was just more relaxed because she wasn't thinking about asking him out. That had been her mom's theory when they had been discussing Marinette's crush and how it was going a few evenings back, and Marinette had to admit that she made a good point.

(Also, her mom seemed to know a _lot_ more about Marinette's attempts to ask Adrien out than Marinette remembered telling. She suspected that Tikki might be telling her a lot, which- well, normally Marinette would be mad about that, but honestly, Alya could have told them just as much.)

They had brought up another very good point when they said that it might not be the best idea to date while she was still fighting Hawkmoth and Mayura. Apparently her parents had heard quite a bit from Alya complaining about Marinette missing out ("forgetting") on things that they had planned, and translating that to a _dating_ setting...

Well, it wouldn't be a good idea with _anyone_. And with Adrien, who was already regularly let down by his father promising to show up to things and then simply not bothering- well, it would be borderline _cruel_, even if she didn't _mean_ to leave him on his own.

Focusing strictly on being friends for the time being would _definitely_ be better, Marinette decided as she re-focused on her work. Next to her, Adrien was tapping a faint beat on his notebook with the end of his pencil as he focused on the next question. She didn't want to lose Adrien's friendship because of her duties as Ladybug pulling her away unexpectedly. Once Hawkmoth was defeated- well, then she would have the time to dedicate to a relationship.

* * *

Marinette glanced over at her phone as it let out the oh-so-familiar _chirp_ signaling an akuma attack, then up at her teacher. Ms. Bustier didn't appear to have heard (though maybe she was just choosing to ignore it, considering how many students had that alert on all the time), so Marinette slipped her phone out of her purse and checked the update.

Oh. That- that looked like a difficult akuma. It was flitting back and forth quick as lightning, too fast to spot anything on it that might be the akumatized item.

It would be hard to fight that, even with Second Chance. She just couldn't give out instructions fast enough to keep ahead of the akuma. Marinette puzzled over that for a second, then quickly excused herself to the bathroom and made a break for it, hopping to a supply closet in the hallway instead. One transformation and a Portal later, and Marinette was back at her house.

"Are you getting more Miraculous?" Sass asked as Marinette hopped across her temporary room to the box where she had hidden the Miracle Box. Kaalki was perched on her shoulder, inhaling a quick snack to recharge, and didn't seem at all bothered. "Or are just fighting from here instead of the closet because it's nicer?"

"I want another Miraculous," Marinette told him, pulling the box out. "I thought that the Bee might be a good choice. And- well, I'm not sure if I should give it to Chat Noir or to my mom. In _theory_, we'll only need one Sting. And if I give it to Chat Noir and he misses, we have Second Chance. But if my mom gets it..." She frowned, pausing with her hand hovering over the Bee's comb. "Actually, Sass, _would_ giving my mom a second Miraculous be a good idea? Master Fu didn't tell us about the fusions right away, so is it not a good idea to have newer Miraculous holders fuse like that?"

"Yeah, it's- well, sometimes it's fine, but new users _do_ have a tendency to tire more easily with fusions," Sass told her. "They're not as acclimated to the magic, and for it to _double _and for the powers to be used multiple times..."

Marinette winced. "We'll have Chat Bee again, then. I don't want to risk my mom falling ill."

Sass smiled. "That's probably wise."

With that decided, Marinette scooped up the comb and called for Kaalki. With a flash, she transformed, immediately grabbing her horseshoe to find where her mom was. Coccinelle was on the move, which would make catching her next to impossible, but Chat Noir was paused in one place, clearly waiting for instructing while staying a safe distance back from the akuma.

_Well. _She would just go to him, then. It would be nice to see Chat Noir in person again, even if- well, even if it was only going to be for a few seconds while she handed over the Miraculous.

"And that's a nice flat rooftop, too," Tianma murmured to herself, narrowing her eyes at her map one more time to make sure that she went to the right spot. "Okay, _portal!_"

The portal shimmered into being in front of her, and Tianma hopped forward on her Miraculous-provided crutches, making sure to jump high enough to clear the (thankfully low) threshold of the portal. She had barely landed when suddenly, her feet were off the ground once more.

"Bugaboo!" Chat Noir exclaimed in her ear, clearly delighted, and Tianma breathed a sigh of relief. He had startled her, but to be fair, she had returned the favor with the sudden unannounced portal popping out of nowhere behind him. "What are you doing out? Is your mom not coming? How's your leg? I didn't expect to see you today! How are you doing?"

"Slow down, kitty," Tianma ordered with a giggle. "My mom is coming, I just had to deliver the Bee. This akuma is _super_ fast, and I think the only way for us to take them down fast is if we immobilize it. And my mom was already headed out when I made that decision, so I came. And my leg is- well, it's healing. Still."

"I wish it would heal faster," Chat Noir told the top of her head. "I mean, the short fights are great and all, and your mom is _super_ cool and helpful, but it's not the _same_."

"I can't wait to get out again, either," Tianma admitted. "Being stuck at home and not being able to do everything that I'm used to- it _sucks_. And I have another three weeks before the cast comes off! Initially I had been hoping to have a _lot_ shorter recovery time than more people because Tikki had said that the Miraculous makes us heal faster, but the _doctor_ doesn't know that, so of course he's not going to look at my leg early." She had made _that_ particular realization only a couple days ago, and- well, she still wasn't over it.

Marinette _knew_ that the doctor had said six weeks, but she had _really _been hoping that Tikki would be able to get her recovery time down to, say, four and a half. Or five. Anything but _six_.

"Well, it's still going to help you get back out faster," Chat Noir told her, and Tianma pulled back enough to be able to look up at him in confusion. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Bugaboo, you know that just because the cast comes off, that doesn't automatically mean that you're 100% again, right? There's supposed to be several weeks of recovery afterwards, and the bone is still healing. If you _didn't_ have Tikki's healing, you probably wouldn't be cleared to go back to normal physical activity again right away." He shrugged. "Or at least that was what I had happen when I fractured my leg as a kid. It _sucked_, and it- well, it was just super hard to remember that I still had to be careful after the cast came off."

Tianma's shoulders slumped. She- well, she had been counting down the days to when the cast would come off and she could go out as Ladybug again, but clearly she was being a bit too optimistic. "Oh."

"But like I said, Tikki should help with that part," Chat Noir added. "Maybe she can tell you more later?"

Tianma nodded. She would be questioning her kwami later on for _sure_. She didn't want to go forward with unrealistic expectations, so- well, she might as well find out sooner rather than later. "Yeah." She let out a long sigh and then, with a start, realized that- well, she hadn't just come out to chat with Chat Noir. She thrust the Bee's box at him. "Oh! Here's the Miraculous. Sass said that it would be better for you to do the combo- I thought maybe my mom could do it, so she would have multiple power uses, but Sass said that she's not used to the magic enough to do combos."

"Right, okay- Pollen, Plagg, combine!" Chat Noir called, and Tianma flinched at the bright flash of the transformation. He grinned at her- and _oh,_ the jagged yellow stripes across his normal outfit would never stop being strange. "I'll do my best."

Tianma nodded, hopping back towards the portal. "Stay safe! And just send the Bee back with my mom. I don't want to have to recharge Kaalki an extra time."

"Of course." Chat Bee paused, then reached out for her, a light hand resting on her shoulder. "Hey, do- do you think we can hang out sometime? Like, for an evening? Not romantically or anything," he added hastily. "But I miss seeing you. It's not the same to just be hearing you."

Tianma didn't even have to consider that before she was nodding, completely on board with the idea. She missed Chat Noir, too, and- well, he was one of her best friends. They didn't get to hang out outside of the suit. "Maybe over the weekend? Not Friday or Saturday, because I don't want to disrupt your patrols with Coccinelle, but Sunday?"

Chat Noir nodded furiously. "Yeah! I'll bring some food- actually, you know what, I'll figure out the details with your mom," he said hastily when a loud explosion went off in the distance. "We've got an akuma to deal with. Back through the portal you go!"

With that, Chat Noir lent her a hand- or, rather, a paw_\- _back through the portal into her room. It closed up behind her, and she detransformed and called on Sass.

"All right, down to business," Vipera announced, settling herself at her desk and getting set up as quickly as possible. She had spent _far_ more time than she had planned with Chat Noir, and now she _really_ had to get going if she wanted to be prepared for the battle.

Still, she smiled. Sunday couldn't come soon enough.

* * *

Ladybug (or, rather, Horsebug) Portaled to their secluded rooftop five minutes early, hauling a backpack stuffed with pastries that her parents had packed for her, plus an entire quiche that her mom had made specifically for them. Unsurprisingly, Chat Noir was already there, spreading out a large blanket and fussing with making sure that it was just so.

"I brought more food," Ladybug announced, stumbling a little as she hopped though the portal. Chat Noir was by her side in an instant, steadying her and making sure that none of her weight landed on her bad leg. "And my mom made quiche, she said it's one of your favorites-"

"Ooh, she's the best!"

"I'll not ask _how_ she knows it's one of your favorites," Ladybug added with a sigh as Chat Noir helped her sit down on the ground- or, well, on a pillow on the ground. She released Kaalki and beamed at the kwami in thanks before turning her attention to her partner. "It seems like she knows quite a bit."

Chat Noir winced at that. "I- yeah. I know I've maybe said too much to her about secret identity stuff, but it's just really easy to talk to her, you know? It's kind of like having a mom again- sorry, sorry, pretend I didn't say that bit," Chat Noir added hastily. "But it's nice to have a parental figure that actually listens, so maybe I talk a little more than I should."

...Ladybug was _really_ glad that Tikki had mentioned that she and Chat Noir might be able to reveal their secret identities at some point soonish. If she hadn't- well, Ladybug would probably be panicking about the additional accidental information.

"Honestly, part of it might also just be that- well, what are the chances that she would actually know me?" Chat Noir asked. "_Civilian_ me, that is. She's an adult, she wouldn't run in, like, the same social circles anyway."

"Except my mom known pretty much everyone I do," Ladybug reminded him. "She knows my classmates, she still recognizes my former classmates, she knows my friends from out of class, she even knows a lot of kids . She's not one of those adults that don't pay any attention to kids."

Chat Noir considered that. "...oh."

"I've told her that she needs to be more careful with what information she mentions to me," Ladybug told him, already hating the way his ears were starting to droop. If having an adult who would listen to him made that much of a difference to her partner- well, that could potentially save him from akumatization, couldn't it? _That_ was super-important. "Because she was assuming at first that you and I talked about the same stuff, so she would just refer to it like common knowledge. So she's not going to accidentally tell me anything now. And..." Ladybug worried her lip for a moment, then forged on. "And she- she already knows _my_ identity. She knows that she has to be careful to not get akumatized. If she figures out yours, too, I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world. It would just be like how Master Fu knew about both of us, right?"

Chat Noir's entire _being_ brightened, and Ladybug knew that she had made the right call. "I- right! Right, yeah, that- that was _not_ the way I thought this conversation was going to go."

Ladybug had to laugh at that. "Honestly, me neither, but I know how much it's helped to be able to talk to my parents about _everything_ in my life. I have Tikki, sure, but it's different, somehow. Tikki sometimes doesn't understand stuff in my normal life very well. And I don't think it's fair of me to deny you that."

Chat Noir pulled her into a wordless hug. Ladybug hugged him back, resting her cheek against his shoulder. She couldn't help but smile, completely content where she was.

"If I ever need to have a replacement Chat Noir, your parents would definitely be my go-to first choice," Chat Noir told her. "I mean, of course I'd rather be out there myself, but if I sprained my ankle really badly, or- heaven forbid- broke something- except I would have to know who they are, wouldn't I? There goes that idea."

"We could make it work," Ladybug told him. "I don't know _how_, but we could." She didn't mention Tikki's comment, not quite yet. It didn't seem like the time to.

Maybe once she returned to superheroing full-time then she could bring it up. Now, it just seemed too early and like she might be getting her partner's hopes up too early.

It didn't take long for them to settle down and unpack the food they had brought, arranging it across the blanket so that they could see everything. There was a _lot_\- there was no way that they would be able to finish it all- but that just meant that there were plenty of tasty-looking choices. Chat Noir handed Ladybug a plate, and they dug in.

It was maybe a little strange, since- well, she and Chat Noir didn't really _do_ this, hanging out and eating dinner. Patrols- when they did them, when they had the time to spare- doubled as exercise and training. They sometimes came out for speeches or events or dedications, but that was rare and they didn't really _chat_ during those. It wouldn't be smart, not with reporters lurking nearby and ready to pounce on anything personal the superheroes said. And during akuma attacks, obviously they weren't going to be sprawling out on a rooftop and mindlessly chatting.

It was nice, though. Maybe- _if_ they had the time- they could do this more often after her leg was back to normal.

"How's the Snake treating you?" Chat Noir asked as they finished up their slices of quiche and turned their attention to the petits fours that her parents had packed. "I don't think we've asked in a while. We got a few fights in with the Second Chance reset, and- well, now it's normal. But I have to imagine that it's super-tough on you."

"It's gotten easier," Ladybug told him. "I've gotten better at it, rather. It seems like I don't have to reset as often, because I've gotten good at spotting openings and incoming attacks. I've gotten Sass to give me more screens, so that helps. I have more angles to work with and watch."

"You're a regular Mission Control," Chat Noir said admiringly. "I couldn't do it. It sounds _super_ hard."

Ladybug could only shrug sheepishly. "I guess. But I've gotten used to it, and it's a bit of a mental challenge, too. And I like a challenge." And she really, really did. It was like playing the world's fastest-paced puzzle game crossed with a fighting game.

"But aren't all of the resets hard on you? Like, seeing things going wrong again and again?" Chat Noir hadn't touched his petits four, instead fiddling with the end of his tail. Ladybug frowned at the question, puzzled.

Nothing had really gone _terribly_ wrong during the fights when she was the Snake. Most of the time, it was just things not going _nearly_ as well as they could have. So she said as much.

Chat Noir seemed _really_ relieved by that.

Their conversation wandered from there, touching on the different battles and what they had seen from their perspective of the fight, then talking about things going on in the city. At one point, their conversation drifted towards the non-Miraculous side of their life, but they quickly backed off and changed the subject before they could say anything _too_ identifying.

Maybe Tikki had said that they were getting closer to a reveal, but there was no point in running the risk of an early reveal before they were ready just because they got carried away with talking and teasing each other.

"Ah, it's getting late," Chat Noir exclaimed after he went to check his baton for something and caught sight of the time. "We'd better pack up and go home. I'm glad you could come out."

Ladybug smiled, leaning forward as much as she could to help pack up the leftovers. Her parents had _definitely_ over-packed, and Chat Noir had brought more than they could eat, too. "I'm glad, too. This was fun. And it was nice to get out in this suit, too." She plucked at the red supersuit, smiling at the familiar outfit. "I know I've been transforming with the other kwami, and of course it's not _exactly_ the same as my normal transformation, what with the crutches and the cast, but..." She trailed off, not sure how to explain it. Fortunately, Chat Noir knew _exactly_ what she was talking about.

"Yeah, transforming with different Miraculous... it just isn't the _same_. I can't put my finger on exactly _why_, because- well, it's a strength boost, and you can just _feel_ the magic, but it's not _quite_ the same magic. It's like..." Chat Noir floundered for a second, his brow creasing. "Like if you're eating something, and the cook forgot one of the spices, or added a new one. But not like a _strong_ spice. Like a really subtle one, and you'd only pick it up if you had it a lot."

Ladybug giggled, reaching forward to poke Chat Noir's stomach. "Talking about food already? You just ate!"

"There's food in front of me, that's why I thought of it!" Chat Noir protested with a laugh, batting her hand away. "Not because I was hungry!"

Ladybug giggled again before sitting back, content to let Chat Noir deal with packing up the food that was out of her reach. "I suppose it's a decent enough analogy. It's something subtle in the magic, not something obvious like the suit itself."

"Speaking of which- your Horse outfit is _adorable_," Chat Noir told her, pausing in his packing to beam over at her. "That tunic top over leggings? Very fashionable yet also leaning towards comfortable-at-home chic."

Ladybug beamed. "Thanks! I wanted to try something different. My transformation as Vipera has the same silhouette, actually. It's really comfy. And, well, it's not like I'm running and flipping around or anything. I can have a little fun with the design."

"D'you think you'd incorporate any of that design into your Ladybug outfit once you come back?" Chat Noir asked, clearly curious. "I mean, I can't see that particular design getting in your way while fighting. And it's cute."

Ladybug muffled a giggle. He had already mentioned that, which... well, was a clear giveaway that he wanted to see that sort of outfit more. "Maybe? As long as the tunic would stay down. And I would keep the higher neckline that I have now, just for safety reasons." Which honestly might throw off the composition of the entire outfit, since right now, with both the Horse and the Snake, she had a wider square neckline. Getting rid of that would get rid of the loose look that the tunic had. And- "Oh, and the sleeves aren't great for fighting. They're too loose. So- well, I guess that version of the Ladybug suit will have to wait until Hawkmoth is gone."

"Ooh." Chat Noir considered that, then smiled over at her. "Another motivation to take Hawkmoth down as soon as possible!"

"Flirt," Ladybug muttered, her cheeks red. Chat Noir just grinned at her, passing over the Horse Miraculous before helping her- or rather, lifting her- to her feet. "Thanks."

"Only the best for my lady!" Chat Noir chirped cheerfully. He grinned over at her as she put the Horse Miraculous on, the second part of her transformation washing over her. "Sweet dreams, Ladybug."

Ladybug smiled as she called on Portal. "You too, Chat Noir."

With a careful hop, Ladybug left the rooftop behind and landed back in her family's kitchen, her Portal closing up behind her. The basket of leftovers got unpacked into the fridge- except for a couple things set aside for the kwamis- and then Marinette headed to bed, unable to keep from yawning widely.

"It looks like you've had a good time," Tikki commented as Marinette washed up for bed. "Was it nice to see Chat Noir in person again?"

"It was great," Marinette told her, unable to help smiling. "I forgot how fun it is to banter with him. It's not a dynamic that I really have with any of my other friends, and I missed it." She tugged out her pigtails and started combing her hair before pausing mid-stroke. "It seemed _different_ from when I last saw Chat Noir, though. When I last _properly_ saw Chat Noir, before my leg broke, that is. He wasn't really flirting as much- or no, that's not right," she corrected herself. "He wasn't flirting _seriously, _that's the difference. We always flirt and tease, that's just how we are, but he wasn't trying to confess or ask me out or anything."

A smile flashed across Tikki's face before she hastily hid it. "He's growing up, maybe."

Marinette hummed in response, starting up her combing again. "Maybe. Whatever it is- well, I liked it. I like spending time with him."

"Do you think you're going to do another dinner together before the cast comes off?" Tikki asked. Marinette thought about it, then shrugged.

"If we have the time, maybe. We'd have to end earlier, though- it's _super_ late right now, and I have school tomorrow."

Tikki smiled at that. "So yes?"

"Yeah." Marinette finished combing her hair and started tying it back up for the night, a small smile on her face. "Yeah, I'd like that."

* * *

The next morning, Marinette's phone started ringing before her alarm even went off. She groaned, swatting for it blearily, and it shut off. Moments later, it started up again, and this time Marinette sat up properly, picking up the phone and squinting at it to see who on earth was calling her at this time in the morning.

It was Alya. With a groan- she and Chat Noir _really_ should have headed home sooner, she was _exhausted_\- Marinette picked up. "Hello? What's-"

"Marinette! Marinette! Have you heard? Ladybug's been spotted! _She's finally back!_"

* * *

_a/n: ...whoops._

_Marinette's name as the Horse- Tianma- comes from a horse in Chinese mythology. If Google serves me right (which it may not, it's lied to me before), Tianma is a winged flying horse. I figure Sabine was probably the one to suggest the name, probably after Marinette grumbled about having to think up **another** new superhero name for herself._

_As always, comments make my day!_


	9. Chapter 9

The entire school was buzzing with the news: Ladybug had been seen on a rooftop the previous night with Chat Noir, hanging out for several hours.

She was _back, _and now- well, akuma attacks were going to go back to normal, right? Or would Coccinelle get assigned a different Miraculous and become part of the regular team?

And Marinette was left cringing from her desk, wondering if- despite how much she had enjoyed her rooftop picnic- it hadn't been a very good idea.

Maybe they should have chosen a different rooftop, one that was higher or more secluded or something. Maybe she should have gone out with a different Miraculous, so she couldn't be so easily identified as Ladybug. Maybe they shouldn't have gone out at _all._

Except Marinette had enjoyed seeing Chat Noir again and spending more time with him. And if she had gone out with a different Miraculous- well, she would have chosen the Horse or the Snake, probably, since those were the ones she had used most recently, but neither would have been a great choice. The superheroes didn't want to give away that there was an active Snake user, and she would have had to detransform and recharge if she had used the Horse as her main Miraculous during the picnic. And as for the location- well, _she_ wasn't limited by where she could go, but Chat Noir had been. If they had wanted to meet in a significantly less busy part of Paris- even less busy than their rooftop had been- then they would have had to go _way_ out.

If they had been older, she would have just used Kaalki to meet up with Chat Noir on the first rooftop, then Portaled them out to a more remote location so that they wouldn't be seen for _sure_. But they weren't old enough for repeated power uses yet, so if they had wanted to do that there would have been a _lot_ of re-charging Kaalki required. Which- well, it was fine during battles, but probably not so fine when they were just hanging out for fun.

Maybe she could have asked her mom to use the Horse for the night and be the transportation for her and Chat Noir- except no, that wouldn't have worked, either. Her mom had to go to bed early because of the bakery, and while she and Chat Noir maybe should have finished earlier so that they could go to bed at a better time, her mom's involvement would have required them to finish really, _really_ early.

"I'm glad that she's back!" Rose told everyone as they waited for class to start. "I like Coccinelle, of course, she seems really nice, but I'm just used to Ladybug. We've seen her around more."

There was agreement all around the room. Marinette ignored it, pulling up the Ladyblog on her tablet and going through all of the photos that Alya had been able to find that people had taken of the "Ladynoir rooftop date". It looked like no one had gotten any photos (or seen) her use of the Horse Miraculous, and since they had been sitting the whole time, there wasn't any sign of her crutches or cast.

Or, well, _almost_ no sign. If she looked _really_ closely, Marinette could see the top of the Ladybug-patterned cast on her leg in one of the photos. But not much of the cast was visible, and if she hadn't known to look for it- well, then Marinette probably wouldn't have known it was there at all.

So it wasn't as bad as it _could_ have been. If news got out about Ladybug's injury- well, that would be worse than them just being spotted, right?

"All right, everyone settle down," Ms. Bustier called as she stepped into the classroom. "I know we're all excited that Ladybug is back, but it's time to learn now. Put away your phones, please, you can look at the photos over break."

There were a few noises of complaint, but everyone listened. Marinette put her tablet to the side and looked up, doing a quick glance around the room to see how people were reacting. There was excitement on most everyone's faces, happiness that the city's second superhero was apparently back. Chloe didn't look thrilled, but that was to be expected. And Adrien-

Adrien didn't look thrilled by the news, despite the fact that he was _definitely_ a Ladybug fanboy. Marinette hid her own frown as she watched him, trying to puzzle out what he might be thinking. He looked more worried than excited, which made Marinette wonder _why_.

Surely he would want to see Ladybug back in action, right? The news that she had been spotted out and about should have been an exciting thing for him. But it _wasn't, _apparently.

_Odd_.

Marinette kept wondering over it during morning classes, but it was just a mystery she couldn't solve. She almost wanted to ask Adrien about it- after all, they _were_ friends, she should be able to ask him a simple question without fretting over it too much- but if he had seen the cast, or had seen other photos that gave away more of her injury, then she didn't exactly want him mentioning that near Alya. Not when she still hadn't figured out how she wanted to address the whole thing yet.

After all, _Ladybug_ wouldn't be able to come back for another week and a half at least. The chances that Hawkmoth wouldn't attack before then was... pretty much nil. The public would be wondering what was going on and why Ladybug still wasn't coming out, unless the superheroes made some sort of announcement.

_Ugh. _Dealing with announcements and press releases and whatnot was _definitely_ not her favorite part of being a superhero.

By the time lunch rolled around, Marinette was all too eager to get home and brainstorm with her parents and Tikki about what she and Chat Noir could say about Ladybug's presence back in Paris. With a few quick excuses to Alya, Marinette step-hopped home and headed up to the kitchen. There, her mom was standing in front of the stove, frowning at her phone.

"We have a problem," Marinette announced, dropping her backpack at the table and hopping her way forward to the kitchen counter. "People spotted Ladybug with Chat Noir last night, and now everyone thinks that I'm going to be back."

"That's not the only news," Mrs. Cheng told her, turning away from the stove and passing her phone over to Marinette. "Someone spotted you out with the Horse during the akuma attack. They hadn't posted the pictures right away, but now they have and there's been a lot of speculation about the 'new' Miraculous holder."

Marinette groaned. She had been hoping that she _wouldn't _be spotted like that. It wasn't a huge problem, necessarily, but it was just one more thing that they would have to explain. "Did people see the crutches with the Horse? And the cast?"

"Crutches, yes. Cast, no. The angle was wrong for that." Mrs. Cheng gave the soup on the stove a stir, then turned her attention fully to Marinette. "So I suppose we'll have to make some sort of announcement, right? I mean, we could always _not,_ just in the interest of not giving Hawkmoth any more clues about your identity, but I doubt the public would let any of this go that easily."

"Right. It would honestly be less hassle if we can think of _something_ to say right away. The longer we go, well..." Marinette thought back to all of the run-ins that she had had with the press before, the way that they responded to what the superheroes had to say. "The more they'll question whatever they'll say eventually."

"So Chat Noir and I should address it by the end of the day, probably," Mrs. Cheng finished. "And- Tikki, what is it?"

Tikki had been vibrating mid-air, clearly dying to say something. "Chat Noir is trying to call. Can- can we go somewhere he won't recognize and transform? He probably wants to check in on what we want to do."

"We can use your dad and I's bedroom," Mrs. Cheng decided after a moment's thought. "Chat Noir hasn't ever seen it, so it should be plenty safe as long as we don't stand near any family photos."

Marinette nodded, leading the way towards the door while her mom turned off the stove. A couple minutes later, they were transformed and in front of a carefully blank baby-blue wall. Coccinelle called Chat Noir back, and he picked up right away.

"I'm assuming that you've heard the news about Ladybug and a Horse user being spotted, right?" Chat Noir asked right away. "Everyone's wondering about it now."

"Yes, and Ladybug said that it would be a good idea to make some sort of press statement today, so that people would actually believe what we tell them," Coccinelle told him. "Or they'll be more likely to believe us, at any rate."

"There'll be conspiracy theorists no matter what we say, honestly." Chat Noir glanced to the side, then back at them. "I looked up what we said when you first took over for Ladybug, just to make sure we wouldn't end up with contradicting stories, and we said that Ladybug was getting 'some much-needed-rest'. And there's been some wondering about how much rest a superhero _really_ needs- as if literally _anyone_ else in Paris could actually decide that- and a lot of speculation that Ladybug was going out of the city on vacation, so I was wondering if maybe we could say that Ladybug got injured on her trip? That way, the dates _really_ won't line up with your injury, Vipera. If anyone uses that information to try to figure out who Ladybug might be, it should lead them in the opposite direction."

Vipera grimaced briefly, unable to help herself. Anything about made-up trips reminded her of Lila, honestly, and that wasn't exactly a comparison that she _wanted_ to be making. But Chat Noir was right- it would throw off the timing between her injury and Ladybug's, and since the crutches had been seen but the cast hadn't, they didn't _have _to say that she had broken her leg.

Maybe she didn't like the comparison, but keeping her identity secret was _far_ more important.

"We could say that she had a bad sprain," Coccinelle suggested, almost as though she was reading Vipera's mind. "After all, it's- what? A little over a week until the cast comes off? So if she _just_ sprained her ankle and then is trying to be careful and make sure that it's at 100% before coming back out, that timing is pretty good."

"We'd probably just want to 'accidentally' imply a sprain, rather than outright saying it," Vipera told her. "Because we've never confirmed anything about our personal lives to the press before for identity reasons, so if we _say_ 'Ladybug sprained her ankle', then people will question that. But if we just mention a minor injury and say that she- er, I- asked Coccinelle to extend her time as a superhero a little bit more to make sure that I'd be coming back at 100%, people can draw their own conclusions from that. _Minor_ doesn't suggest a broken leg, and there's only so many things that crutches can mean."

Chat Noir nodded approvingly. "I like that! A sneaky little bit of manipulation. I think it's a believable amount of information. Like, normally we wouldn't say even that much, but we kind of _have_ to in this situation and everyone know that- or, well, they expect it, at any rate."

"Yeah, what people _expect_ and what people _need_ to know are sometimes two completely different things," Vipera sighed. "From some of the stuff I've seen, people seem to think that I should have handed out a day-by-day itinerary to everyone in Paris so they wouldn't be 'left in the dark'. Which is just- do people even _think_ about what they're saying before they say it? Did no one consider the whole _secret identity _thing?"

Chat Noir laughed. "I know, right? I've seen those posts, too. Thankfully there aren't _many_ of them, and some are clearly kids who don't know to take Hawkmoth seriously, but the others? The grown-up adults who think that we should hand them an exhaustive list of information about our lives? What are they _thinking?_"

"They're not, and that's why they wouldn't make very good superheroes," Coccinelle responded tartly. "I would love to meet one, actually, and read them the riot act. They need to actually use their brains every once in a while. They're not just for decoration, after all."

Vipera muffled a giggle. She'd like to see that too, honestly. Those poor souls wouldn't know what hit them.

"Okay, I think I wrote all that down," Chat Noir said after a pause. "About what we want to say, that is. I can do a press release later today, after school. I'll let the Mayor know. I can probably manage it on my own-"

"I will _not_ leave you to the press vultures on your own," Coccinelle informed him tartly. "I'll be able to pop out. Just call when you're heading out for the conference and Tikki will let me know. And you _will_ be in trouble if you try to do it yourself, young man."

Chat Noir laughed. "Okay, okay. I just didn't know if you would need to stay at work or not and I wanted to give you that option. But I'll call you for sure."

"Good boy." Coccinelle glanced at Vipera, then back at her yo-yo's screen. "I think that's all we have to discuss ahead of time, unless either of you have any concerns to bring up?"

"Maybe we could mention that Ladybug has been helping the fights go smoother, too," Chat Noir suggested. "I know we were talking about letting on that she's been assisting near the end of her time off, but not exactly _how_. Would now be a good time to bring it up?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea," Coccinelle decided. "It will probably provide a fairly natural opportunity to mention it, which is exactly what we'd like."

"Calling another press conference to bring it up would just be strange," Vipera agreed. "And it's only a little more than a week left, so it shouldn't be overly early. Not that Hawkmoth can actually really counter Second Chance- or, well, I don't _think_ he can, especially when I'm not even out on the battlefield. But then it can just be a passing comment, instead of having a ton of focus on it."

"That's a good point," Coccinelle agreed. "So yes, we'll look for a place to work it into our comments! Anything else?"

There was nothing else, and then they ended the call. Coccinelle detransformed, heading back upstairs to finish up lunch prep, and Vipera followed her, still transformed and hopping along on her crutches. Right before she reached the door, her lyre let out a quiet chime. Vipera paused, puzzled, and then pulled her lyre out to check it. A message from Chat Noir had popped up, a small notification in the corner of her screen. Frowning- they had _just_ talked, why on earth would he have to send a message so quickly?- she opened it.

_Chat Noir: I'm sorry about this whole mess! I know you hate telling more lies than we need to and we would have gotten away with the resting thing if we hadn't done the picnic. That was a bad idea on my part, I definitely didn't think it through_.

Vipera sighed. It wasn't his fault at _all_, really. She had agreed to the picnic, after all, and they had both enjoyed themselves. It was just unlucky that someone had spotted them and that it had blown up as much as it had. Propping herself up against the wall, she messaged him back saying as much. He was _not_ allowed to blame himself, and that was that.

If he kept blaming himself... well, her mom knew where to find him. If _she_ couldn't knock some sense into Chat Noir and get him to stop taking on the blame for things that weren't his fault, then no one could.

* * *

Marinette followed the press conference from the comfort of the bakery's front counter, her attention divided between the video feed on her phone and the customers coming up to the counter. Chat Noir had taken the lead, since he was the permanent superhero and the one that people would be most likely to trust, and he was doing _really_ well.

Neither of them particularly _liked_ public speaking, especially considering that there were always going to be people who would pick apart what they said to try to twist their words into something else, but Chat Noir tended to avoid it more often than Ladybug. While he was fine with the attention, the _speaking_ part, well...

It was clearly not his favorite part of being a superhero. But he had stepped up to the plate this time, only being a _little_ obvious about glancing _above_ the crowd instead of actually at it. And he wasn't hesitating over his words at all, delivering what was presumably a practiced spiel rather smoothly.

Or at least it was smoothly from what Marinette could tell. Considering that she had been a bit distracted by customers needing her attention, he could have stuttered or stumbled over his words at some point and she wouldn't have noticed.

Once the conference was over and Mrs. Cheng had returned to the bakery, Marinette made her way upstairs to watch the footage properly on her computer. The Ladyblog had coverage of the impromptu press conference from several TV channels linked in one post, and Marinette clicked on the first one. It took a minute to load, and then she pressed _play. _On-screen, there were a few seconds that simply showed an empty platform, and then Coccinelle and Chat Noir landed in the middle of the stage.

Just like she had thought, Chat Noir's delivery was near-flawless, and Coccinelle only stepped in to help him along in a couple places. And when questions opened, he didn't flinch away at all.

Even though the questions were- well, for lack of a better word, they were _aggressive_.

People wanted more details, of course. They wanted an exact date when Ladybug would be healed and back. They wanted to know _how_ she got injured, and when. Some were questioning why Ladybug had gone on a trip and left Paris in the first place, and if that was really a responsible thing for a superhero to do and if Ladybug was taking the superhero thing as seriously as she should be.

Marinette _just_ kept herself from snapping at the screen at that. _Not taking the superhero thing seriously?_ The 'superhero thing' dictated her entire life! She couldn't even go on a field trip without considering her superhero duties, having to think about how she would get the alerts and how she would get back to where she needed to be (_particularly_ if their trip took them out of Paris). The first thing she had thought about after her leg broke was how it would affect her superhero life. When she had use of both legs and a bit of free time, she would go out searching through shops in Paris to make sure that she had a good supply of potion ingredients on hand, _just in case._ She had to think about where she could store the Miracle Box long-term so that it would be secure and safe, and _that_ was on her mind almost all of the time now. Sketches of hidden compartments and complicated locks were tucked alongside her fashion designs, along with scribbled thoughts on logistics. And whenever she could, Marinette would pull out other kwami from the box and talk to them about their powers and how they had been used in the past, just to get a better idea of what tools she had on hand.

_Not taking it seriously_. There was no way that she could possibly take it _more_ seriously. But the vacation lie was a necessary one, and besides- well, Chat Noir had well and truly called those particular reporters out on their absolutely ridiculous claims.

Really, it was ridiculous for people to expect Paris' defenders to never take a break, he had told the crowd of reporters and cameras. Why should he and Ladybug be required to shoulder all of the stress of protecting Paris from supervillains and never get a vacation, or even an extended break? Overworking and stress could wear down on them, but a vacation- well, it was a good way for Ladybug to get refreshed, right?

Besides, Chat Noir had added before anyone could voice their objections, hadn't Ladybug done a good job of setting things up to keep going in her absence? She had picked out Coccinelle, and decided who got what extra Miraculous and got those Miraculous to the fights before the battle even started- _and_ kept an eagle eye on the fights in live time to help them out, noticing things before Coccinelle and Chat Noir did and warning them. _Which_, if anyone had noticed, resulted in the fights being a _whole_ lot shorter.

And _that_ particular revelation had made the crowd stop their grumbling and sit up straight. There was another flurry of questions- if she could get the Miraculous there and spare the time to watch and monitor the fight, why not just come back herself, at least before she got injured? Was the mysterious Miraculous user in brown Ladybug? How was Ladybug so much more effective when she wasn't there in person?

Coccinelle sent an icy glare at the asker of that last question and they promptly shut up, no other answer needed.

"Yes, Ladybug used the Horse to deliver Miraculous," Chat Noir confirmed, clearly none too thrilled at some of the questions being asked if the lashing of his tail was any indication. "And she could spare the time to watch and _provide vital information to us_ during the fights _because_ doing that shortened them. If she hadn't been doing that- if she had been, y'know, _taking a complete vacation_ like she _deserves_ after protecting the city nonstop for over a year- then Coccinelle and I would have been having a _much_ harder time. It wouldn't have been smooth sailing like it has been, so I thank Ladybug _very_ much for taking time out of her break to make sure that Paris would stay safe in her absence."

With that, Chat Noir gestured for an end to the press conference and he and Coccinelle waved before taking off, not giving anyone any time to fling more questions at them. It was a tactic that they used rather often, actually, since often the press wanted to ask more probing questions than they wanted to answer.

More _personal_ questions, really. Questions about things that might give too many clues about their identities, because that was what the public was most curious about. And trying to evade those questions time after time- well, it wasn't fun. It was exasperating that the reporters insisted on trying to pry, and neither of the superheroes wanted to come off as impatient and snappy. And if they slipped up and gave away any information...

Well, one slip _once_ might not be so bad. But those small slips could add up fast, and so it was better to just finish saying what they needed to say, thank the reporters for coming, and then promptly take off.

"Your mom said to just let her borrow the Miraculous if any of those reporters start stirring up problems for you once you come back," Tikki told Marinette, suddenly appearing next to her shoulder and making her yelp. Tikki ignored that. "She's sure that you can handle yourself, but she's perfected her Parental Icy Glare and if people think that they can bug _teenagers_ into giving them an answer, then they'll have to deal with Mama Bear."

Marinette giggled. "Unfortunately for her, there's not a Bear Miraculous. Not in the box I have, at least."

"Oh, you- you know what I mean!" Tikki complained. "She'll make sure that no one bugs you. And then if they get upset or she has to be really snappy, it won't be _you_ that people will get upset at."

"I don't exactly want the city upset at my mom, either, but I get what you mean," Marinette sighed. She glanced back up at the screen. "Well, that's done. Now, all we have to do is wait and hope that people don't question our story _too_ much."

* * *

If the mood at school was any indication, Paris had bought the superheroes' story hook, line, and sinker. And for the most part...

Well, most people weren't _too_ worried. Coccinelle and Chat Noir- with Ladybug's help- had been doing a _fantastic_ job during the akuma battles, enough that Hawkmoth had noticeably cut back on the number of akuma attacks. Marinette's theory was that Hawkmoth didn't want to give Coccinelle and Chat Noir practice with the weak akumas and thought that it might be to his advantage to only akumatize people if they promised to be a strong akuma. That way, Coccinelle's lack of experience might work against her. It wasn't working that way, of course, but Hawkmoth never let failure put him off from trying the same thing over and over and over again.

Others, though, were concerned. Not about the safety of Paris, really- clearly the setup that the superheroes had now was working- but about _Ladybug's _safety.

"It's bad enough that she got hurt on her first vacation after over a year of constant akuma attacks, but now that she got spotted out and Coccinelle and Chat Noir had to clear up what was going on and now- well, now all of Paris knows that she was traveling out of the city and when, and when she got injured- _and_ that it was a leg injury!" Alya was telling her audience at school. "That's a _lot_ of information. A lot of _potentially identifying_ information. Hawkmoth might be able to figure out who she is from that!"

"Okay, I don't think there's _nearly_ as much info out there as you think," Alix told her. "Yeah, so Ladybug got _seen_ recently, sure, but who says that that was when she got back to the city? I'd say it's more likely that Ladybug went on a short trip- because really, who goes on a trip longer than, like, a week in the middle of the school year, when there's no holidays? Maybe two weeks, if it was a _really_ big trip- and got injured then. A broken leg, probably, or- well, or a broken foot or ankle, that could happen too- and she's just been staying in the shadows since then. Or she _did_ take a longer vacation and _did_ have the injury more recently and will be out a while longer." She shrugged. "She might decide to stay out longer than she needs to just to throw off the timeline, too. There's a _lot_ of stuff that Ladybug could do to make sure that her identity isn't _quite_ as compromised."

Marinette blinked. Alix had been putting a _lot _of thought into this, she could tell. Maybe that wasn't a huge surprise, though, considering that she _knew_ that she was going to be getting the Rabbit Miraculous and had probably spent a bit of time contemplating how she would both keep herself from spilling that information and how she would keep her secret identity _secret_ once she actually got the Miraculous and had to vanish to help with- well, akuma battles if they were still going on, and whatever other superhero duties called. She had probably been keeping a close eye on the situation as soon as Coccinelle showed up, maybe even studying the contents of each interview as much as Alya to try to pick up on what was being said- and what deliberately _wasn't_ being said.

Maybe Alya was the self-appointed Ladybug expert in the class, but Marinette would put money on Alix being the one who got more out of the superhero interviews. She had always been pretty good at reading between the lines.

"I hope you're right," Alya sighed. "I just worry, you know? If Hawkmoth finds out who she is- well, Chat Noir made it pretty clear that the reason why they've been doing so well is because of Ladybug's help, and if Hawkmoth attacks her and they don't have her help anymore..."

She trailed off, and several of their classmates exchanged worried looks.

"Ladybug is smarter than that, though," Nino chimed in, "She knows the risks more than anyone in Paris. They would have thought to talk ahead of time to make sure that they wouldn't give away _too_ much. And honestly?" He shrugged, glancing around the room. "She's clever. Everyone is assuming that her injury was to her leg or ankle because of the crutches when she used the Horse, but who's to say that the crutches weren't just a prop? Maybe she actually broke an arm or a rib and she's trying to throw people off the scent. No one actually got pictures of her actually _moving around_ on the crutches, after all, just her standing there with them."

There were murmurs of agreement around the classroom at that, and Marinette hid her smile. That was a _very_ clever thought, and honestly, it was one that she maybe should have thought of herself before venturing out into public view at all. There was no real way to encourage that line of thinking without it being obvious, though, which was a little unfortunate.

Nino's comment wouldn't be forgotten, though. She would keep it as a thought in the back of her mind, an idea as to how they could throw people off of their scent in case Chat Noir was ever injured and they had to come up with a cover story for him, too. Hopefully they would never need to use it, but, well. they were superheroes. It never hurt to be prepared.

* * *

_a/n: author problems...when you have the perfect spot to end a scene but accidentally end up sounding super-ominous. I tried to fix that, I really did, but...well, there was no other way to finish, not unless I wanted to spend a ton of time fiddling with that instead of writing more._

_As always, comments make my day! :)_


	10. Chapter 10

It seemed like the final week was stretching on _forever. _She was _so_ close to getting her cast off, and yet each day inched by, time slowing down as if to prolong her time before the cast could come off.

The two mid-week akuma attacks helped break up the trudge down the final stretch, as did her friends' efforts. They had taken note of her flagging mood and tried to help, sending her funny pictures and popping in for visits and now, they had arranged a trip to the movie theater to try to distract her.

"Don't worry, we chose a fun movie," Alya told Marinette as they headed towards the theater. She and Nino were walking slowly so that Marinette could keep up without struggling, but they were going almost _too_ slowly. Marinette tried not to sigh.

They _meant_ well, that was all that mattered.

"Yeah, no horror movies," Nino agreed. He glanced over at Alya. "Though there _is _one with pretty good reviews running right now. Maybe for our date this weekend...?"

Alya nodded, grinning. "Yeah! That would be cool. I might not be able to stay on for, like, lunch or dinner afterwards because of the twins, since Nora took over my babysitting today, but we could at least get out for a movie."

Marinette shuddered at the thought. Horror movies on a _date?_ No thank you. She dealt with enough monsters and scary situations in real life, thank-you-very-much. There was no need for her to go watch scary movies and kick-start her overimagination into worrying about less magical threats like serial killers, too.

Or _supernatural_ threats that (probably) wouldn't exist outside of an akuma setting, like evil ghosts and zombies and skeletons and- _anyway_.

It wasn't her idea of a good time, and she hoped that when she went on dates- in the future, _after_ Hawkmoth was no longer an issue and she wouldn't be interrupted all of the time- that any visits to the movie theater would be for _fun_ movies, not creepy ones. Alya always said that the jump-scares and creepy scenes were a fantastic excuse to cuddle close to a boyfriend, but was that really _worth_ the nightmares? Couldn't the air-conditioned chill of the movie theater be enough of an excuse for a cuddle?

"Anyway, it's a very family-friendly movie, sure to be 100% Marinette-approved," Alya added after another minute of date-planning with Nino, clearly realizing that- well, it wasn't exactly pleasant to turn Marinette into the third wheel. She nodded down the block, to where the movie theater had just come into view. "And, well, I think the company is going to be Marinette-approved, too."

Marinette blinked, confused, and then she followed Alya's gaze. There, in front of the theater, stood Adrien's bodyguard. And in front of the bodyguard stood Adrien, looking very relaxed and at ease. He lit up when he saw them coming, waving cheerfully as they approached. He looked a bit tired, but Marinette couldn't blame him. Adrien had missed the entire afternoon of classes for an extended photoshoot, and from what she had heard, those kinds of shoots were absolutely _exhausting_.

Not as exhausting as they had been when Lila was there and constantly gumming up the works, maybe, but still exhausting.

"Dude, I'm glad you made it!" Nino told him, reaching over for a fist bump. After a second, he fist-bumped Adrien's bodyguard, too. "I thought you were going to text if you got permission to come!"

"I was just about to, honestly," Adrien told him with a laugh. "Just in case I missed you and you had already gone in. And then I saw you coming and- well, it wouldn't have made sense to text then, right?" He grinned, then nodded towards the theater. "Should we go in now? Then we can try to get good seats."

They went, and the Gorilla followed them in. Marinette almost asked about that, but it didn't take a genius to figure out why he had come along instead of just dropping Adrien off. The last time they were in a movie theater, Adrien had practically gotten mobbed by fans. Maybe that had been because he had _just_ been featured in a perfume ad- one that had been _heavily_ featured across Paris, not that it made much of a difference once people actually started trying the fragrance and found it rather lacking (and once people found out that no, _Adrien: the Fragrance_ wasn't actually what Adrien the model (and occasional voice actor) actually wore)- but it was better safe than sorry. Hopefully the presence of the Gorilla would keep the pictures and mobbing to a minimum.

Inside, a line had already formed in front of the ticket counter. Not a _long_ line- it was the middle of the week, after all- but they were hardly the only students who had just gotten out of school. Alya grumbled for a moment, but a nudge and a quiet murmur from Nino got her to settle down while they waited. It wasn't a _bad_ wait, really, and then they were headed through the lobby.

"Snack time!" Nino cheered, veering off towards concessions. "Anyone else getting stuff?"

Marinette and Adrien both shook their heads, though Adrien's had been after a pause, after he looked to his bodyguard first. Marinette wouldn't be surprised if he just simply wasn't _allowed_ to have junk food, which- well, most of the time she would say that was a pity, but _movie theater_ junk food was just terrible in general. He _really_ wasn't missing out on anything.

Alya groaned. "Nino, the snacks here are _terrible_. Their popcorn- I don't know _what_ they do to it, but it just tastes _awful_."

"I was thinking of getting something chocolate, but- yeah, I guess if no one else is gonna get anything, I'll pass." With one more glance towards the concessions stand, Nino hurried back to join them. "Okay, so which room are we in? The fourth screen, right?"

"Yeah, that's what the ticket says," Alya confirmed. She started making a beeline towards the right door, only to come to a screeching halt a couple meters away when she realized that Marinette wouldn't be able to keep up. "Oh, sorry! I went too fast-"

"You could go ahead and scope out seats for us," Marinette suggested. She nodded towards her foot. "Just remember that it'll be easier for me to get to a seat on the end of a row instead of in the middle."

"Ah, good idea!" Alya grinned at her, then snagged Nino's hand and pulled him after her towards the usher waiting at the screen's door, only pausing to glance back and wink at her. Marinette rolled her eyes back, knowing full well what Alya was trying to do.

But did Alya _seriously_ think that Marinette was going to ask Adrien out when his bodyguard was _right there?_

"I'm glad I was able to come," Adrien commented as he stepped up next to Marinette, letting her set the pace as they headed after Alya and Nino. "I've gotten so used to photoshoots running overtime and then I can't make it to outings, but this one ended on time- early, even! It was a nice change."

Marinette frowned. "I would have thought that your father would run a tight enough ship that going over wouldn't be an option unless something went _really_ wrong."

"Yeah, it- well, that's the way it _usually_ is, admittedly," Adrien told her. "It was really just when Lila was there that things always took longer than they should have. Unless there was something that she really wanted to be at, that is."

Marinette wasn't even a small bit surprised.

"And then the last few shoots, I guess part of the problem was that we had to re-do shots from earlier shoots, where Lila was modeling," Adrien told her. "I think originally Father was just hoping to get away with using those pictures and then just not use Lila as a model going forward- not that he _could, _since she's not even in Paris anymore- since not that many people would know what she had done. But then Alya posted that article on the Ladyblog about how much of a fraud and a bully Lila is, and people were starting to put two and two together. So all of her photos got scrapped."

Marinette cringed. "Even now that she's gone, she's still causing problems."

"I think you're feeling the effects for the longest." Adrien fell quiet for a few seconds, then nodded towards her leg. "But at least the cast is coming off pretty soon, right?"

"Two more days," Marinette told him, unable to keep from smiling at the thought. She was sure that those two days would drag out endlessly because of the anticipation, but there wasn't much she could do about that. It was getting increasingly hard to not just jump the gun and ditch the crutches- she _could _probably walk on her leg by now, considering Tikki's (and Sass's) healing boosts and how close she was to getting the cast off, but she didn't want to risk anything before the doctor could look at it again. "I can't _wait_."

"Yeah, I remember the feeling from when I broke my leg. I swear time slows down when cast-off date gets close." Adrien handed his ticket over to the usher, then passed Marinette's over as well. "You're doing better than I did, honestly. I tried to ditch the crutches as soon as it had been a couple of weeks and my leg wasn't really hurting, and it took the doctor threatening to leave the cast on for even longer to get me to stop." He laughed. "For some reason, I had been convinced that if it didn't really hurt anymore, it must be fine. And maybe I had weeks left in the cast, but I just must be a super-healer!"

Marinette giggled. "You practically read my mind. I was just thinking about how it's been getting harder and harder to remember to grab my crutches when I want to hop up and grab something or just walk a short distance. Part of me wants to think that there's no possible way that I could re-damage something at this point, but I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"That's smart," Adrien agreed. He dropped back behind Marinette as they approached the wide steps leading up to where Alya and Nino waited, ready to steady her if she had trouble going up. "And, uh, did they tell you that you might still need crutches even after the cast comes off? Because they dropped _that_ particular bomb on me when they were in the middle of taking the cast off."

Marinette groaned. "_No_."

"Maybe you'll be lucky and not need it, since you've been following directions and taking care of your leg better than I did." Adrien's hand rested against her back, pressing a little more firmly as soon as she wobbled and retreating after she steadied herself. "And you didn't have a terrible break in the first place, right? That should help, too."

That, _and_ she had the power of tiny gods on her side helping her heal, but Marinette wasn't about to tell anyone else that. "I hope it does. I'm _so _tired of crutches."

"I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, then."

Marinette smiled as she stood back to let Adrien slip into the row next to Nino before she took the aisle seat. "Thanks."

The movie itself positively flew by, and before she knew it, it was over and they were waiting for the majority of the audience to leave so that there wouldn't be as much risk of Marinette getting knocked into.

"This was fun," Adrien commented once the crowds had thinned out and they had gotten out of their seats, making their way down towards the door. "We should do it again sometime."

"We do it _all_ the time, dude, you just gotta get your father to agree to it more," Nino told him. Adrien just shrugged helplessly.

"He can't always spare the Gorilla to come out with me. And honestly, it's not necessary most of the time, but he's paranoid." A shadow crossed Adrien's face for a moment, and then he shook it off and perked up. "So, have you heard that Marinette's cast is coming off in two days? I think we should go out for ice cream or something to celebrate afterwards!"

"It'll be late when I get back from the doctor," Marinette warned him, carefully navigating the last low step before making her way towards the door. "Since we wanted to wait until after school and my parents didn't want to close the bakery _too_ early if they could avoid it. And that might not be a problem for me or Alya or Nino to come out, but..."

Adrien grimaced. "Yeah, Father might have a problem with that. Uh, the next day, maybe?"

"Sounds good!" Nino agreed. "Or whatever works with our schedules. We gotta keep it flexible. But a celebration would be great! Andre's?"

Adrien shook his head. "His moving around could make things difficult. And Marinette probably shouldn't be running all over the city after an ice cream cart _right_ after her cast comes off."

Marinette hid a giggle. Running all over the city had actually been in her plan after getting the cast off, as long as the doctor cleared her for walking on her leg again. But running around with a Miraculous and running around _without_ on were two _very_ different things. Especially since Marinette could always ask Tikki to add a bit of extra support for that leg, _just in case_.

"Besides, sometimes Andre has some _really_ odd flavor combos," Adrien added, his eyebrows furrowing. "And I get that it's because of the love thing, but then sometimes he starts mixing it up and talking in riddles and- _anyway_, sometimes I just want a plain old cookies and cream cone, you know?"

"And Andre's double- and triple-scoops are sometimes a bit much for a snack," Marinette added. She appreciated the thought behind Andre's ice-cream cones, but sometimes she was a bit over ice cream by the time she got partway through the last scoop. "And my favorite is raspberry chocolate chip, but I never get that there. He doesn't take requests."

Alya groaned. "The _point_ of Andre's isn't the _ice cream flavor_, it's the experience! But I suppose we could mix it up and go somewhere else. There's a place near Marinette's house that has a pretty good selection. My little sisters love it."

"We'll plan on that, then," Nino decided. "And figure out a day and time later, once you talk to Nathalie. And if they don't let you come out then, maybe we can try to sneak a trip in over lunch on Monday. We'll make it work."

Adrien nodded, a grin lighting up his face. "Yeah! Yeah, that sounds good."

Marinette smiled, watching Adrien's face. His smile was real, unrestrained and completely happy. She wouldn't be surprised if he had been bracing himself for his father refusing to let him come out and not being able to come to the outing that he had come up with in the first place. It would be nice, of course, if they could go over the weekend- they could take more time to talk and linger instead of rushing- but if waiting until Monday meant that Adrien could come along with them instead of video-calling them while nibbling his way through a scoop of ice cream from his chef at home, then it was completely worth it.

* * *

As much as she hated to admit it, as Cast-Off Day approached and then finally arrived, Marinette had found her excitement competing with more than a little apprehension about her return to superheroing. She wasn't worried about being rusty on strategy- after all, that was what she had been getting a _ton_ of practice with- but she knew that she was going to be out of shape. It was inevitable. She had even lost muscle tone in her _good_ leg, she could tell, and that one had been used on a regular basis to hop along with her crutches. Sure, the supersuit provided bonus power- a _lot_ of bonus power, considering the jumps that she and Chat Noir made on a regular basis- but being in shape as a civilian certainly didn't hurt.

Marinette could only hope that six weeks hadn't dulled her fighting instincts _too_ much. She had worked _hard_ for those instincts, _thank-you-very-much, _and getting set back would just plain _suck_.

There were other concerns, too. Akuma attacks would most likely be returning to their regular lengths once she returned as the Ladybug holder, and she didn't know how that would be received. And- her most recent concern- was about how the month and a half of a different routine would affect her partner.

Chat Noir had been following her directions during fights for every single akuma battle since- well, since the first week after her leg got broken. Maybe there had been some fights where he hadn't really needed much direction- some where he ended up holding off Hawkmoth or Mayura while Coccinelle dealt with the akuma, so as long as he didn't get overpowered or hurt, Vipera had just let him be- but for the most part he had been, as he said, her puppet. How that- and how having the safety net that was Vipera there to erase his mistakes and gambles that didn't _quite_ pan out- affected his ability to function in _normal_ battles remained to be seen.

It had only been five weeks, really. Hopefully- _hopefully_\- Ladybug's break and their different approach wouldn't throw their teamwork and ability to fight into unexpected shambles. Maybe if they took that into account when Ladybug came back instead of assuming that everything would slide into place easily, then they could account for some of the places where they might be weaker.

She could talk to Chat Noir about it, and maybe her mom could step into the Snake position for the first couple of fights just in case. She wouldn't direct the fight like Vipera had, but if she could tap into that sixth sense that Vipera had used for the first few fights to know when to activate Second Chance, then that could help cover the worst of their slips. If there _were_ slips.

Hopefully there wouldn't be. Hopefully it would be easier than Marinette thought to re-adjust.

"I can hear you worrying from here," Mrs. Cheng told Marinette as she steered the van through traffic. She spared a quick glance to the side. "You _know_ that Tikki said that you were healing well. The doctor is hardly going to look at the x-ray and immediately turn around and slap the cast back on your leg."

"It's not getting the cast off that I'm worried about, really." She was _really_ looking forward to that bit, to getting to wash off her leg for the first time since the cast came off and hopefully, _hopefully_, getting the all-clear to actually walk on her leg again. "It's re-adjusting to things again. It'll be easy to return to normal on the civilian side, but I've been worrying about how re-adjusting to battles will go."

"Well, if a fight isn't going well, you can always pull back and trade with me," Mrs. Cheng told her. "We might need to figure out who will need to hold on to what Miraculous so that we can do that quickly and safely, but considering that Hawkmoth just attacked earlier and- well, and what _happened_ during the attack- I think we'll have a few days to iron out plans before he sends out another akuma. And if he sends one out sooner, before we have a plan in place..." She glanced over at Marinette before returning her eyes to the road. "I know you're eager to get back out there, but I can always handle another fight or two if needed."

Marinette knew that, and maybe it would be a good idea to wait for a fight or two to further throw off her recovery timeline in the public eye, but- _ugh_, it was easier said than done. She was just eager to get back in shape and to get a better read on what they needed to do to re-adjust (if anything), sooner rather than later so that she wouldn't be catastrophizing unnecessarily. And then there was also the whole matter of- well, Paris was getting increasingly impatient and unsettled as they got closer to a week with no Ladybug after the press conference.

Clearly the public weren't thinking along the same lines of what might have happened as her classmates had. They weren't reading between the lines like Alix about when the injury might have happened, and therefore not considering injuries like Marinette's as a possible clue to Ladybug's identity. _That_ was a good thing, but it was really only a matter of time before more people started thinking the same way as her classmates.

Alya had shown the good sense to _not_ put up the class's theories about the timeline of Ladybug's vacation versus the injury on the Ladyblog- well, after both Marinette and Alix had pointed out that there was no reason to undo any of the work that the superheroes had done with obscuring potentially identifying details. But Marinette had still heard some speculation starting up, and while her teammates were _really_ good at countering the questions that were flung at them, it would probably be better if Ladybug just showed up herself.

Her mom's favorite tactic in response to the pestering was asking why people wanted Ladybug to put herself at risk by rushing back. It's not a good idea for pro athletes, Coccinelle always pointed out, so why would it be any different for superheroes? And if people _really _cared about their superheroes as people, then why did they not seem to care about their health- _or_ their safety, considering that the general public seemed to want the superheroes to give up potentially identifying information?

People shut up pretty quickly after they got asked that, particularly if they had been trying to interview the superheroes live.

Thankfully, though, Marinette suspected that her mom was right and that she _would_ have a couple days to get her bearings before another akuma popped up. The akuma that had attacked only that morning- well, it hadn't been alone. So Marinette's dad had gone out with the Turtle again (and Chat Noir with the bee) and then spent most of the battle cheerfully giving Hawkmoth a very through beatdown. In fact, there had only really been a little bit of actual fighting at the start, and then Hawkmoth spent the rest of the time cowering under heavy, repeated blows from the turtle shell until Mayura rescued him and they dashed off.

At the very least, Hawkmoth probably wouldn't be coming out for a few battles. He was nothing if not a coward, and coming probably his closest to defeat should make him rethink not hiding entirely behind his akumas.

"Don't let the public pressure you if you decide that you need more recovery," Mrs. Cheng added after a long pause. "Your safety is more important, always. And remember that it's not just your safety, but Chat Noir's as well."

Marinette had to laugh. "You really do know exactly how to get through to me, don't you? Okay, I'll do my best to be realistic about what I can handle."

Mrs. Cheng looked pleased.

It didn't take long for them to get to the doctor's office and get sent through to do her check-up. Marinette got an x-ray taken first, and when the doctor comes back in with it, he looked impressed.

"Well, good news, you are a _very_ quick healer," he told her, settling down in his chair. "Possibly one of the fastest I've ever seen. Your leg has moved past the stage we would normally expect at this point and with the type of injury you got. I'll tell your physical therapist that we can go a bit more intensive on your therapy. You'll be able to handle it no problem. And while you'll want to ease your way into more intense activities, you can start working your way back."

Marinette grinned, nodding. This was _definitely_ the news she wanted to get.

"And you won't _need _to keep using your crutches," he added. "But you'll want to keep them around, just in case your leg starts feeling sore. If you're going to be doing a lot of walking, I would definitely recommend that, at least until you've built up your endurance again."

"That's fantastic," Mrs. Cheng said, beaming at Marinette. "Do you have any exercises we can maybe start doing at home?"

"Yes, I'll print off some along with the care instructions later." He smiled, then pulled out what could only be the cast saw. "Now, let's take that cast off!"

As soon as her leg was in position, the saw whirred to life and started cutting into her cast. Marinette had to look away as her doctor worked, doing her best not to accidentally twitch or anything.

She was sure that he had loads of experience and was very good at his job and there were safety measures with the saw and all, but sharp blades near her leg was just a big load of _no thank you_ in her book. When he finally put away the saw and picked up a pair of scissors to finish the job off, Marinette couldn't stop her sigh of relief.

"And all done!" her doctor announced, finally pulling the cast away from her leg. "That went nice and smoothly. You can hop down now, if you'd like."

Marinette nodded, glancing down at her leg and immediately having to do a double-take.

She had known that her leg was going to look odd after being in a cast for a month and a half, every single site that she had looked at had said so. But reading it and _seeing_ it were two _very_ different things.

Her skin looked weird. The hair on her leg looked weird. The muscle- it had shrunk even more than the muscle on her other leg, which was maybe to be expected but still made Marinette wonder how long it would take for her to get it back to something resembling normal. And now that the cast was off...

Well, she would be washing her leg tonight, that was for sure. Marinette didn't want her sheets to smell like _that_. Besides, the skin just looked- and _felt_\- gross.

Taking a deep breath, Marinette slid down off of the table, taking the entire impact of the landing with her good leg. Then she took her first normal step in a month and a half.

It didn't hurt at all. _Thank you, Tikki_.

"I'd like to go out into the hallways now and have you walk up and down it. I want to see how even your steps are," her doctor requested. "Then I can send that to the therapist and she'll be able to tailor your plan to what you can do."

Marinette nodded at once, following him towards the door and trying not to over-analyze how her steps felt. Overthinking might just end up in her walking weird when she didn't have to, and- well, that wouldn't help anything at all.

"Okay, you're looking good," the doctor called to Marinette as she headed up the hallway. She felt a little off-kilter, but the doctor seemed pleased. "There's a bit of weakness in the one leg, but that's to be expected. With exercises and use, that should even up soon enough."

Marinette bit down the urge to ask _how _soon. She didn't want to seem impatient, especially since she was doing so well with her recovery already. Besides, her physical therapist would probably be able to tell her more after she actually started doing her exercises.

"I'll print off a care packet and some exercises for you to add to your routine, and then you'll be good to go," he told Marinette as she returned. He grinned. "Good job on the healing. Now, _please_\- do at least _try_ to not overexert yourself."

* * *

Dinner that evening was takeout, a rare occurrence in the Dupain-Cheng household, but they wanted something special to celebrate Marinette's cast coming off and something fast so that they wouldn't spend a large chunk of the evening cooking and cleaning up.

"Your dad and I can move things back up to your room tonight," Mrs. Cheng told Marinette as she finished up the last of her meal. She smiled at Marinette. "I'm assuming that you're eager to move back up there, since you're walking well. And while we do that, well..." She reached up, pulling the Ladybug earrings off and handing them to Marinette. "Chat Noir is expecting to have someone join him for patrol tonight, as usual. I didn't tell him that you would be the one coming, just in case you weren't feeling up to it, but I suspect that you might want to go out."

"Yes!" Marinette pulled out her placeholder earrings- she hadn't want anyone to notice that her ever-present earrings had vanished while she was on crutches, so she had found a lookalike to wear instead- and popped in the Ladybug Miraculous. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling since she had been wearing them most nights, but knowing that they were going in to stay there now was _great_. Then she paused. "...but then people will see us and that might give away my recovery timeline, since Coccinelle was seen earlier today."

"You can always temporarily modify your costume to look like Coccinelle's outfit!" Tikki suggested. "Then from a distance, people probably won't notice that you've switched off. And since it's dark, that should help, too."

Marinette nodded, her grin inching back onto her face. "Okay. I'd definitely love to do that, then! As long as you and Dad don't want help moving things, that is."

"We'll take care of the moving," Mr. Dupain assured her, reappearing at the table with a large cake. He deposited it in front of Marinette and pulled out a knife to start cutting pieces. "Partially so that you can go out and have fun with your friend, yes, but also because we'd _really_ rather not have you trip over a blanket while carrying it upstairs and have you sent back to square one."

Marinette opened her mouth to protest that, considered it, and then closed her mouth again. As much as she hated to admit it, her dad... had a point. "Okay. Thank you so much!"

"Anytime, darling." Mr. Dupain paused, considered that, then tried again. "I mean, I'd rather it _not_ be necessary again, but if you need any help, we're here for you. And if you want to have us come out on patrol ever, or come out on fights with you..."

She had to laugh. "You've gotten over your fear of running over rooftops, then?"

"It's growing on me. Slowly." Mr. Dupain served up three generous slices of cake, passing them around before sitting back down. "And I can't say that beating Hawkmoth up wasn't entirely satisfying. I'm definitely more than willing to do that again."

Marinette nodded, making a mental note of that. Her dad couldn't really come out _often_, probably, since the bakery needed to keep running, but if he could join them at random sometimes...

It was something to keep in mind.

"I wish I could have watched," Mrs. Cheng commented, scooping up a forkful of her cake. "And no one got any footage of it, either! Such a pity."

Marinette had to laugh. "It _was_ quite satisfying. Honestly-" she made a few fast mental calculations, a list of pros and cons, and then came to a quick decision. "You could probably keep the Turtle on you, and just come out if we're struggling or something and you have some time to spare. It would be easier than me having to come back and get the Miraculous out for you."

Her dad looked vaguely offended. "If you're struggling _and_ if I have the time? Marinette, if you and Chat Noir are struggling, I will _make_ the time. And if I _have_ the time, if there's an attack when the bakery isn't open or I'm not needed, I'll be there. I'd love to beat up Hawkmoth again."

"If you start vanishing too much during akuma attacks, your employees are going to notice," Marinette pointed out. "And it's going to be for more than a few minutes most of the time. Not like what it's been for the fights you've gone out for before."

Her dad looked a little stumped. "Hmm."

"If I have access to the Horse, I could drop him off and collect him," Mrs. Cheng pointed out. "That cuts out travel time there and back. And it could be an element of surprise, too- if Tom is transformed and knows exactly where I'm going to Portal him to, he could ambush the akuma or the sentimonster or the supervillains with almost no warning."

Marinette opened her mouth, about to say something about how it probably wasn't a good idea to have _too_ many Miraculous out and active in one household, then shut it again. That- actually, why _wouldn't_ it be a good idea? If, heaven forbid, Hawkmoth and Mayura found out who any of them were, then they could _all_ jump in and defend themselves right away. Maybe Master Fu wouldn't have approved, but Master Fu wasn't the Guardian anymore, was he? She had to do what worked best for her. "Actually, I like that idea. And if I need any of the other Miraculous for backup, I could text you and you could just Portal it right to me, no need for me to come back here."

That was a _really_ good idea. The fewer trips she made to the bakery as Ladybug, the better. And it would be faster, too.

Why hadn't Master Fu thought of that? It would have made _so_ much more sense than her having to disengage herself from the fight for at least fifteen minutes to go to Master Fu's house, with the potential of having supervillains spotting her and figuring out where she was going. There would _still_ be a pause while she found the holder she wanted for that particular Miraculous, but that really couldn't be avoided.

"You know what I would _love_ to see?" Mrs. Cheng told Mr. Dupain after a minute of quiet eating. "Your mom with a Miraculous. I'm not sure how _effective_ of a fighter she would be, but can you picture her scolding Hawkmoth?"

Mr. Dupain laughed. "I think you underestimate her. She's taken more than a few self-defense classes over the years. Partially because she tends to travel alone or in groups of people she's not _super_ familiar with, and partially because it's part of experiencing different cultures. Or that's been the excuse that she's given me, at least."

"D'you think, if she transformed while on her motorcycle, _that_ would get magic powers, too?" Marinette asked, the picture of a Superhero Nonna Gina zipping around and running over Hawkmoth with a superpowered flying motorcycle already floating through her mind. "Because _that_ would be super cool."

Tikki giggled. "Probably not. Unless...?" She tilted her head, considering. "I don't know, actually. You'd have to try it. I don't know if anything like that has been attempted before!"

...she was a responsible Guardian, and she will _not_ find an excuse to give Nonna Gina a Miraculous the next time she's in Paris and try to get her to attempt to transform with the motorcycle. She will not, she will not, _she will not_.

"Oh, that's a picture," Mrs. Cheng chuckled. She scooped up another bite of cake. "We might be able to test that with one of us and a regular bike, maybe on one of our days off. Just for curiosity's sake, you know."

"Research," Mr. Dupain agreed cheerfully. "Very important, you know."

Marinette had to laugh at that.

They finished up, and then her parents shooed her off as they started the work of carrying things back up to her room. Marinette still snuck in a couple trips with some smaller things, and then she hauled herself up to her balcony. She exchanged an excited look with Tikki, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

This was actually happening. After weeks of longing to be back out on the rooftops, running and swinging around, she was finally returning.

"_Tikki, transform me!_"

In a flash of pink light, Ladybug replaced Marinette on the balcony. She took a moment to make sure that her outfit looked more like Coccinelle's than her own regular outfit, and then she was off. The yo-yo went out, Ladybug jumped, and she was flying through the air again.

It. Felt. _Amazing_.

Ladybug grinned, resisting the urge to whoop with joy. She had to keep her return low-key for now, which meant that she wasn't _quite_ free to do whatever she wanted yet, but that was fine.

She was _back_, and that was what was important. The whoops and cheers and fancy swings down low over the street could wait until she had made her _official_ return.

It didn't take long at all to reach the place where Mrs. Cheng had told her that she and Chat Noir would be meeting up for patrol. Ladybug landed- _carefully_, her good leg first and the healed leg second, though it didn't hurt at all- behind her partner and bounded forward, unable to keep the grin off of her face. Chat Noir had perked up as soon as he heard her land and he almost tripped over his own feet in his hurry to turn around. He stumbled, catching himself almost right away, and his eyes landed on Ladybug. His expression turned puzzled for a moment when he caught sight of her outfit, but the confusion was wiped away and replaced by straight-up excitement as soon as he caught sight of her face.

"_Bugaboo!_" Chat Noir exclaimed, pouncing on her at once and nearly bowling her straight over in his excitement. "You're back! Is it- is it for good? The cast is off, you're clear to come back?"

Ladybug grinned, nodding. "Yeah! I just got it off today. And I couldn't wait to come out, but I didn't want to give all of Paris a timeline for me being back if they spotted me, so-"

"Thus Coccinelle's outfit," Chat Noir finished for her. He straightened, pulling Ladybug to her feet. He grinned at her. "That threw me off, I'll admit, but it's not a bad look on you at _all_."

Ladybug grinned, doing a little spin just because she could. "Thanks! I- _oh!_" She tripped over her own feet and stumbled. Chat Noir caught her at once, putting her back on her feet.

"Careful! You only _just_ got back out!"

"Oh, gosh, not a good start," Ladybug said with a small giggle. Thankfully her stumble hadn't been because of her leg acting up, just one of her normal stumble. "If that happens during battles, maybe you'll end up wanting Coccinelle back! I don't think me stumbling around will help make the battles any shorter."

"Don't say that." Abruptly, Chat Noir was serious, grasping her hands in his own. Ladybug blinked, taken aback. She had just been joking around, but her partner clearly wasn't, and the intensity in his eyes had taken her off-guard. "Don't worry about the time fights take, Ladybug. Seriously. Having you back and fighting at my side? That's _more_ than worth it."

Ladybug smiled. "Thanks, Kitty."

"Of course." Chat Noir beamed at her, bright and happy and excited. A few moments passed, and then he nodded across the rooftops, grinning. "So. Are you ready for patrol?"

"Are you kidding? Let's go!"

* * *

_a/n: Ladybug's back! Woo!_

_One more chapter to go! And as always, comments make my day :)_


	11. Chapter 11

Getting to go out again- heading down the stairs without the help of a lift, bounding out the door, rushing unencumbered down the sidewalk to the spot where she was going to meet up with her friends- was _amazing_.

Tripping over a raised bit of sidewalk because she wasn't being careful and going flying with a squawk... well, that was a lot less fun.

But at least Adrien was right there to catch her before she could hit the ground.

"Easy there," Adrien said with a laugh, setting Marinette back up on her feet. "Man, you're off crutches and already speeding around, huh?"

Marinette laughed, even as she felt her cheeks heating up. "Yeah. I'm just excited, I guess."

"I don't blame you. And no crutches?"

"The doctor said that I'm all good to go, as long as I don't overdo it." Marinette grimaced down at the uneven bit of sidewalk. "Though maybe I should hold off on the running down the sidewalk for a bit. I'm sure someone would be concerned if I showed up with my knees all scraped up not even a day after getting the cast off."

If she were being honest, that _someone _might very well be her. After weeks of being in a cast, Marinette couldn't help but be a little paranoid that she would re-injure herself and her taste of freedom and normalcy would be snatched away again by further weeks of casts and crutches and bedrest.

Adrien made a face. "Yeah, that wouldn't be the best. I can't imagine your parents banning you from doing things like my father would, but they probably wouldn't be happy." He paused, then flashed her a smile, clearly deciding to move on. "It must nice to have everything back to normal, huh?"

"So nice," Marinette told him. "I can do stairs again! My parents and I are going to work on taking the lifts down and returning them this weekend, so then we can have the stairs all clear again. And they moved me back to my normal room last night and it's _so_ nice to be back and have access to all of my stuff again. Especially my sewing supplies! My parents had offered to bring stuff down, but there were too many things I might need and I didn't want them to dig for things I requested and get everything messed up."

"Yeah, I can imagine how easy that would be," Adrien agreed. "I've seen your sewing set-up and all of the boxes you have. I don't know how you find anything, but I'm sure you have some sort of system."

Marinette nodded. "Yeah. It makes sense in my head." She probably should buy a proper storage system at some point- a modular storage system with a bunch of drawers would be easier to organize than a heap of shoeboxes of all sizes- but that would have to wait until summer.

Honestly, it would be best if it could be customizable and added onto as her collection of tools and materials expanded, which meant that she might end up making it on her own. Which _definitely _meant waiting until summer, but her shoeboxes could last until then. One or two might need a bit of assistance from some duct tape, but that was fine.

"I'm glad that I got to come out today," Adrien told her as they headed the short distance down the block to their meeting point. Alya and Nino were nowhere in sight yet, but that wasn't surprising. After all, both she and Adrien were running early to their lunch-and-ice-cream get-together. "Father and Nathalie initially wanted me to tag along on some luncheon with one of Father's business partners, even though whenever I have to do those, I need to stay completely silent unless directly addressed. Which happens _maybe_ once per lunch, and it's always really obvious that they're just addressing me to be polite and acknowledge that I'm there instead of just outright ignoring me."

"I'm glad they let you come today," Marinette told him. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to have to go to a fancy lunch and be expected to exist as- well, as decoration, really. The closest thing she had ever done was go out with her parents to meet some of their friends or extended family, people that she didn't really know well and felt a bit awkward around. But they always tried to include her for at least part of the conversation and if she wanted to ask them any questions, she could. "Lunch at the cafe probably won't be as fancy as your father's luncheon, but it should be more fun!"

"Better company, too," Adrien told her, grinning. "And sometimes fancy food is overrated. Honestly, a panini and some soup sounds _amazing_. And- hey, there's Alya and Nino! It's about time, slowpokes!" he called. "Hurry up!"

"We're coming, calm down!" Nino called back, not picking up the pace at all. "It's not our fault that you two decided to come early!"

Adrien just shrugged. "I was looking forward to coming out, so sue me!"

"I'm just glad your pops finally saw sense and let you out." Nino finally drew close enough to exchange a fist bump with Adrien, grinning at him before turning his attention to Marinette. "So, what did the doctor say? Your cast is off- all good things?"

"All good things," Marinette confirmed. "My leg's healed well, now I just have to build the muscle back up. And that's going to be a bit of a process, but at least it won't test my patience as much as the cast and crutches did."

"Nice!"

It didn't take them long to reach the cafe and place their orders, then crowd around a small table to wait for their lunch to be delivered. Their knees jostled each other as they settled- it _definitely_ wasn't a table meant for four people- but Marinette couldn't help but grin, _definitely_ more excited than she really should be for what was a fairly simple outing. It was just that, well, everything was _normal_ again.

"A hot lunch, a cold treat, and great company- what else could you ask for?" Adrien asked happily as their food got delivered to their table. "What a perfect day!"

They all nodded, already digging into their food. Marinette let out a happy hum as the blend of cheeses in her sandwich that she had ordered hit her tongue. It was the perfect temperature, hot enough to warm her up but not so scalding as to burn her tongue when she took a bite.

"Well, at the risk of sounding like an old dodder, how about a toast?" Alya asked after a minute of happy munching had passed. "To the rest of the school year only being exciting in good ways?"

"Oh, man, I'll drink to that," Nino said at once, accidentally sending his cup sloshing when he clinked it against Alya's a little _too_ quickly. "No more nasty surprises! We've had enough of that this year already."

Marinette nodded, thinking back. There had been a _lot _of crappy things that had happened in the past year- the Heroes Day attack, Lila's return (and everything that went along with it), her loss of Master Fu's support and the reveal of all (or _almost_ all)of the temporary superheroes, and then her broken leg. Then Nino and Alya- most of their classmates, really- had been hit pretty hard by the reveal of Lila's true colors and the realization that none of her 'connections' were actually real.

Maybe most of the year had been pretty good, but there had been a _lot _of pretty harsh lows.

"I think we could all do with a few _nice_ surprises," Adrien agreed, lifting his cup as well. "Or at the very least, a bit of calm."

Marinette smiled, thinking of her superhero life. After all the madness of the past couple of months, calm with some nice surprises sounded absolutely _perfect_.

* * *

Luckily for the superheroes, several days passed before Hawkmoth struck again. Ladybug and Chat Noir spent the time doing nightly patrols, racing across the rooftops and practicing some of their battle skills as best they could without getting spotted, or at least without getting spotted close enough for anyone to notice that it was Ladybug and not Coccinelle out. Chat Noir was still being more careful with her than usual- they had to abandon tag because he wasn't _trying_, just because their tag usually involved tackling- but thankfully he hadn't let that carry over to their battle, instead falling back to their usual smooth dynamic.

Well. Their usual smooth dynamic, with some adjustments. Their nightly patrols had helped them suss out Ladybug's new limits and weak spots ahead of their battle, allowing them to figure out how they might account for that while Ladybug recovered. There was less flirting and more focus- Ladybug suspected that either Coccinelle had said something about _timing_ of puns and flirting and when it would take away from their focus, or Chat Noir had just gotten used to having incredibly focused and fast-paced fights with Vipera, when they never had the time for joking around and any punning could get in the way of Vipera's instructions- and that meant that they were smacking down on the akuma almost as hard as they had been when it was Coccinelle and Chat Noir on the battlefield, with Vipera in their ears.

Ladybug grinned as Chat Noir taunted the akuma, pulling its attention over to him as she dodged in, jumping and flipping over the akuma's shoulder in a controlled tumble so she could snag the corrupted pin holding the akuma's cap on, yanking it off and landing only with a slight stumble. Ladybug crushed the pin as the akuma's (_very_ limited) mind-controlled army stumbled to a halt, purifying the butterfly and releasing it into the air. Chat Noir came over to join her as she called for her Cure, his grin just as wide as her own.

"That went _really _well," Chat Noir said happily as Ladybug returned the restored pin to the akuma victim. "Only ten minutes, and that was with a mind-control akuma too! _And_ not all of those ten minutes were spent fighting, even."

Ladybug grinned, turning to face him. "Yeah, three minutes of us being out and transformed was just watching the cameras like I did as Vipera to figure out the powers and where the akuma was. Maybe we just got lucky this fight and it won't help as much all the time, but..."

"I think it's a good idea to do that all the time," Chat Noir said, extending his baton enough that he could lean forward on it, beaming over at her. "It's scoping out the fight in advance and gathering intel _without_ having cars and spider webs and random powers getting flung at us. Maybe it won't help as much every time, but when it _does_..."

Ladybug nodded. If they could shave down battle times at all, it would be worth it. _Especially _since- well, there were still parts of the battle that could have gone more smoothly, even with their preparation. They needed every advantage they could get.

"Ladybug! Ladybug, a quick word!"

"Aaand here come the reporters," Chat Noir said with a small sigh. He flashed a smile at Ladybug. "Are you good to give a statement now, or should we bounce?"

"I'm good," Ladybug told him. "It'll just be a quick comment anyway."

Chat Noir nodded, still not looking _completely_ convinced. "Okay, if you're sure-"

"Ladybug! Are you back for good? What was the nature of your injury? Will we see Coccinelle again, or will she come out with a different Miraculous? Can you give a statement to Paris about why you decided to leave on vacation in the middle-"

"If anyone questions why I took _well-deserved_ time off, I won't be answering _any_ questions and Coccinelle will come after you," Ladybug told them tartly, cutting across the cacophony of overlapping voices, and the reporters promptly shut up and sent a dark look at the man who had asked about Ladybug's vacation. "As for the rest- yes, I'm back, though Coccinelle and I have not ruled out her occasionally coming out in my place as needed. And I'd like to thank Paris for accepting her with open arms, even without a heads-up that there was going to be a temporary switch." She flashed the cameras a grin and a peace sign. "Peace out, Paris!'

And with that, she flung out her yo-yo and was off like a shot. There were a few cries of protest from behind her since she hadn't answered _all_ of the questions, really, just one. She hadn't said anything about her injury, or if Coccinelle might come out with a different Miraculous, or-

"Wow, you might need to call Coccinelle out again to go after the reporters," Chat Noir commented, landing on the roof behind her. "I can understand being curious about if Coccinelle will come out again, but I thought she made it clear that people need to respect your privacy and _not_ push for details."

"Well, if they can't manage to cut it out, my mom is teaching me her patented Icy Mom Glare." Ladybug giggled. "Though I might rename it to the Patented Superhero Glare, since _Mom_ Glare just comes with implications."

"Good idea." Chat Noir fell quiet for a moment, glancing her way a few times like he wanted to say something. Ladybug raised a curious eyebrow at him, and he glanced away again before letting out a sigh. "So. Uh. There was something else I wanted to talk to you about, if we have time."

"I'm sitting at just under four minutes," Ladybug told him. "Go ahead."

"Right. So. Uh." Chat Noir rand a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. "So I _swear_ that I'm not just bringing it up now because we have less than five minutes left on our timers and you can't get that mad at me in that amount of time, really. But I've been thinking back to my last few battles and patrols with Coccinelle- well, the patrols, really, not so much the battles, there wasn't much time for talking then-"

He was _definitely_ babbling now, but Ladybug just settled back against a chimney and waited.

"-anyway, I didn't really notice anything off at the time, but I think that maybe, possibly, potentially, your, uh. Mom might suspect who I am."

There was a pause. Ladybug blinked.

"I mean, I don't know for sure, and I still don't understand how it could be at all likely, but some of the things she said, sometimes- I mean, it's possible that I just told her stuff and then forgot that I did and I'm just jumping to conclusions. But. uh. I thought it might be important to mention." Chat Noir let out a sigh. "I know you said during the picnic that it was okay for me to talk to your mom and it wouldn't be the end of the world if she figured me out, but I still wasn't expecting it to actually happen. And I worry about what that means for _us_ keeping our identities secret from each other."

Well. She hadn't been planning on passing on Tikki's comment _quite_ yet, since they were only one fight in and she _had_ wanted to have maybe a couple weeks of normal battles again before doing any sort of identity reveal reassessment, just to let the dust and fuss around her return settle a bit first. But maybe she was just overthinking things and it would be better to just keep Chat Noir clued in. Then they could both be in on the same loop and maybe discuss their theories about Tikki's words.

"Actually, about that," Ladybug started slowly, and Chat Noir's ears twitched towards her. "Tikki and I were talking a few weeks ago about identity stuff, and she said that we were getting closer to being able to do a reveal. Like, I thought we would have to wait until Hawkmoth gets defeated, but apparently it's a possibility that we _won't_ have to wait for that. I don't know _what, _exactly, she's looking for," she added quickly, because really all Tikki had said was something about _getting closer_ and _maturation_ and _growth_ and in all honesty, _she_ didn't fully understand what, exactly, Tikki was referring to, which was probably why her kwami had told her not to try to force the growth. If she tried to explain it to Chat Noir... well, she could easily muddle everything up and might accidentally end up insulting him somehow. "Or how long it would take for us to get there. But the whole leg thing somehow got us closer."

_Somehow_ wasn't exactly the right word for it- Ladybug had noticed some subtle shifts in their relationship compared to before her leg got broken- but she didn't want to draw attention to those shifts. Somehow she suspected that, like Adrien's change in attitude towards Chloe (which was continuing, even as Chloe dug her heels in stubbornly), pointing it out directly might only serve to make him uncomfortable.

Even if she had wanted to try, Ladybug wasn't even sure that she would be able to find the words to describe the differences. Some, like the focus during the battle and the flirting retreating back to fully playful, were easy enough to put her finger on. Others...

Well, others were not, shifts too subtle to really pick out what exactly had changed. It was all good changes, though.

Chat Noir lit up, grinning. "That's cool! So it's _really_ not as big of a deal as I was worried it might be."

"Tikki still wants us to wait if possible, but yeah, the world's not going to end or anything if we slip up and figure each other out." Ladybug grinned as well, unable to help getting caught up in Chat Noir's excitement. "I kind of wish she had said more, but..."

"Well, we'll find out soon enough, I hope," Chat Noir told her. He wriggled in place, clearly hyped up about the news, and then he half-pounced on her, scooping Ladybug up in an excited hug. "This week has been _amazing_. You're back, we got to hang out with bonus patrols, our first post-return battle was a _super_ success, and we might get to share our identities and- and hang out outside of the masks soon! Or at least before we defeat Hawkmoth," he corrected himself before Ladybug could say anything. He set her down, still grinning. "That's _amazing_."

"It _has_ been a pretty good week," Ladybug agreed, beaming. Maybe it was early in her post-recovery return, but so far, so good. She leaned forward, hugging her partner tightly. "Here's to hoping that it keeps going that way."

"Yeah." Chat Noir glanced down at her, his expression entirely fond. "I hope so, too."

* * *

Another week passed and at school, Marinette slipped back into her normal routine easily enough. She could take the stairs on her own now, no more piggyback rides or taking the elevator necessary. Adrien usually stuck close by when they were on the stairs, close enough to steady her in case she ever tripped- which she hadn't, not yet- but that was the only major change from before.

And it was hardly a _bad_ change, either. Maybe Marinette had come to the conclusion that she needed to hold off on dating until Hawkmoth was taken care of, but getting a bit of extra attention from Adrien was never a bad thing. She was getting used to it now, and not blushing as much or messing up her words when he slung his arm around her shoulder or wound his arm through hers as they walked to class together.

(She wasn't going to read too far into his sudden closeness. Maybe Alya was right and he had developed a crush on her, but maybe he was just making sure that she wouldn't get knocked around and risk breaking her leg again, so soon after getting the cast off. Which- well, it wasn't going to happen, not with the amount of healing that she had done with Tikki's help, but she wasn't going to mention her magically sped-up healing to her friends. It would just open the door to too much questioning.)

The week had two more akuma battles- Tanker joined them for one, not because they were struggling but just because it was the bakery's day off- and several patrols. The patrols weren't _strictly_ necessary- they hadn't regularly done them before, since they had been so busy and overwhelmed- but with the newly-shortened battles, they had more free time to spend together. It also gave the two superheroes time to hang out and tease and joke around when there wasn't the pressure of a battle hanging over them, so they could buckle down and be super-focused during battles without sacrificing their friendship and their bantering dynamic. It was something that Marinette really wanted to be able to keep doing long-term, as long as her schedule allowed for it.

(Tikki really, _really_ liked that arrangement, though she wouldn't tell Marinette exactly why. Marinette suspected that it had something to do with the whole 'growing' thing that Tikki had talked about before. Marinette wasn't going to overthink it, though. Patrols were time for her to have fun with her partner and use the Miraculous to relax- _and_ to get more exercise so that she could start building up her strength and endurance again, that was an extra bonus- and she wasn't going to ruin that time by wondering if they were growing as much as her kwami had hoped.)

Marinette wasn't willing to just let things continue as they were, though. It would be easy enough to sit back and fall into a new routine, one with patrols with Chat Noir and battles that occasionally included her parents. It was working _really_ well, after all. But she had learned a lot while she was sidelined, about strategy and long-term planning, and she wanted to keep working on that. Sure, akuma battles were _better_ now, but it would be absolutely _fantastic_ if they didn't _have_ akuma attacks anymore. If Hawkmoth and Mayura were defeated, she wouldn't have to worry about attacks disrupting her day or waking her up at night. She and Chat Noir could hang out safely during the day, instead of having to stay up late, and could help out around the city when it was more convenient for them. Everyone would be safer, and the city wouldn't have to worry about Hawkmoth preying on their emotions.

It was a nice thought, and Marinette wanted to get there sooner rather than later. And _that_ meant being proactive with her approach and planning what she could do to change things up and throw Hawkmoth off.

She already had some plans in place of things that she could switch up at random, of course. Ladybug could swap out for Coccinelle and Vipera. Her dad could come out as Tanker- and Hawkmoth was _definitely_ scared of Tanker after the beatdown that he had gotten- and her mom could bring out bonus Miraculous or deliver them to backup holders directly, instead of them having to suspend the battle to sneak Miraculous out.

And if _that_ wasn't enough to turn the tides in their favor- _well_. They could switch things up even more. One of the things that Marinette's time on the sidelines had taught her was that one of the hallmarks of a good leader was recognizing when she might do more good in another position. Maybe she loved being on the battlefield and being Ladybug, but if she was more effective as Vipera and her mom could fill Ladybug's shoes without compromising an overly large amount on fighting ability...

It was just a thought, something for her to consider and keep in mind as more of their battles unfolded. Marinette would have to talk to the kwamis to get their opinions, and of course it was possible that an _adult_ Snake would be able to unlock more- not _powers,_ necessarily, but perhaps flexibility. If the timer-stop could be continuously adjusted instead of having just one fixed reset point with an adult holder, that would be a valuable thing to know. It would make what she had done as Vipera not nearly as difficult to do, so- in theory, at least- then one of her parents could take over as the Snake instead.

It would still be smart not to reset to the _very_ closest point, just for flexibility reasons, but it wouldn't require remembering dozens of resets' worth of instructions.

That was a good starting point, Marinette decided as she settled back into her bed. Above her, she could see the shadows on her balcony shifting in the breeze, pale moonlight beaming down from above. She had a framework in place, things to ask about and try out and see what worked best. There would be a lot of moving parts around and trying new things and constantly shaking things up while keeping track of all of it, but that didn't worry Marinette.

After all, with Chat Noir and her parents by her side, _anything_ was possible.

* * *

_a/n: So this is the end! Thank you so much for reading :)_

_I haven't ruled out returning to this story 'verse at some later point, but at the moment I have a bunch of other stories that have been begging to be written (some for a VERY long time), plus (as some of you know) my fall job fell through, so I'm scrambling to find and apply to jobs as well. That'll keep me busy for a while!_

_As always, comments make my day!_


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